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Semicentennial 
Anniversary 
Beloit 
College 

(on)n)encen)ent  ^ek.'Jflne  20=23,  1897 


SUNDAY: 

Baccalaureate  Sermon; 

Missionary  Address. 
TUESDAY  MORNING: 

Unveiling  of  the  Bust  of  Dr.  Chapin  ; 

Historical  Addresses; 

Poem,  Memorial  to  Professor  Blaisdell. 

TUESDAY  AFTERNOON  : 

Addresses  by  Alumni. 

WEDNESDAY: 

Anniversary  Address; 
Ode. 


BELOIT,  WISCONSIN. 
1897 


SONNET 


Hon ace  Spencer  Fiske 


To  the  First  President  of  the  College: 

Unveiled  in  marble,  touched  by  master  hand 

To  Greek-like  calmness,  look  forever  now 

Upon  thy  College,— blessing  with  thy  brow 

Of  benediction  what  thyself  hadst  planned. 

Through  six  and  thirty  years  thy  hope  far  spanned 

The  College  future,  and  thy  prayerful  vow 

Of  love  and  lifelong  labor  did  endow 

Her  life  with  faith  and  strenuous  command. 

Thy  careful  strength  stood  round  her  like  a  shield: 

Thy  balanced  brain  kept  knowledge  as  her  goal; 

And  with  thine  upward  finger  on  the  field 

Of  stars,  thy  spirit  traced  as  on  a  scroll 

The  thought  divine  that  softly  lay  revealed, 

And  led  her  by  the  greatness  of  thy  soul. 

Chicago,  June  15,  1897. 


e 


BACCALAUREATE  SERMON. 


PRESIDENT   EATON". 

Isaiah  xxxn:2.  "A  man  shall  be  as  an  hiding  place  from  the 
wind,  and  a  covert  from  the  tempest;  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place; 
as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land." 

From  the  summit  reached  to-day  we  look  back  over  a 
noble  expanse  of  history.  The  landscape  of  fifty  years  is 
unrolled  before  our  eyes.  Our  pulses  beat  quick  with  the 
enthusiasm  awakened  by  the  scene.  It  is  fitting  that  we 
pause  a  moment  to  dwell  upon  our  privilege  in  having  our 
history  placed  in  such  a  region  as  that  of  Wisconsin  and 
northern  Illinois.  Where  is  there  a  location  to  surpass  it? 
In  the  midst  of  our  northern  states,  adjacent  to  the  me- 
tropolis of  the  interior,  on  one  side  mighty  inland  seas,  on 
the  other  the  Father  of  Waters  sweeping  toward  the  Gulf, 
a  thousand  lakes  shining  like  scattered  gems  about  us,  bil- 
lowing prairies  of  rich  fertility,  forests  stately  and  solemn, 
mines  stored  with  buried  treasure,  seasons  finely  varied  from 
winter's  keen  invigoration  to  summer's  opulent  harvests, 
with  a  sky  as  clear  as  Italy's  own,  piled  oftentimes  with  un- 
substantial Alps  or  flooded  with  molten  gold;  is  not  this  in- 
deed a  goodly  land,  an  imperial  domain? 

Fifty  years  ago  the  destinies  of  this  splendid  region  were 
being  determined,  and  its  physical  advantages  were  no  se- 
curity for  its  future.  The  question  was  not  of  field  or  mines, 
but  of  men.  What  sort  of  men  are  they  to  whom  we  look 
back  from  this  memorial  week,  greeting  the  beginnings  of 
our  College  history? 

Men  they  were  of  vision,  as  all  men  have  been  who  have 


PZ^% 


4  haccataureate  Sermon. 

been  equipped  for  the  founding  of  states  and  of  permanent 
institutions.  Such  a  man  of  vision  was  Abraham,  hearing 
the  divine  call,  and  journeying  westward  to  a  land  where 
the  worship  of  God  was  to  be  established  by  his  posterity; 
content  to  dwell  in  tents  until  God  should  provide  him  a 
country. 

Such  a  man  of  vision  was  Isaiah,  fronting  the  breaking 
waves  of  the  invasion  of  a  fierce  and  proud  people,  calling 
his  terrified  countrymen  away  from  trust  in  military  al- 
liances, and  directing  their  thought  to  the  impregnable 
strength  of  a  righteous  people. 

Such  a  man  of  vision  was  John  Winthrop,  turning  his 
back  upon  fair  England  with  the  wealth  and  preferment 
that  were  legitimately  his,  commingling  the  spirit  of  Abra- 
ham with  that  of  Isaiah,  seeking  at  once  a  roomier  land  for 
a  purer  worship  and  a  place  for  the  founding  of  a  righteous 
state. 

Such  a  man  of  vision  was  Manasseh  Cutler,  New  England 
minister,  Revolutionary  soldier,  and  scientist,  who  secured 
from  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  in  1787  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  great  Northwestern  Territory  to  religion,  moral- 
ity  and  knowledge,  guaranteed  as  free-soil  forever. 

It  is  men  of  vision  like  unto  these  of  whom  we  think 
when  we  retrace  the  life  of  the  region  and  of  the  College  to 
its  sources.  Dr.  Horace  White,  Aaron  L.  Chapin,  Aratus 
Kent,  Lucius  G.  Fisher,  Stephen  Peet,  Wait  Talcott,  S.  T. 
Merrill,  Joseph  Emerson,  J.  J.  Bushnell,  A.  L.  Field,  Horace 
Hobart,  Luther  Clapp,  T.  L.  Wright,  John  Lewis,  Jeremiah 
Porter,  S.  W.  Eaton,  Dexter  Clary,  Z.  M.  Humphrey,  E.  J. 
Montague,  Josiah  L.  Pickard,  Samuel  Hinman,  G.  S.  F.  Sav- 
age; such  are  the  men  who  shaped  these  fair  regions.  Theirs 
was  the  clear  vision,  the  ardent  hope;  the  worship  of  God, 
the  establishment  of  a  righteous  state,  the  preemption  of 
the  territory  for  faith,  honor  and  learning,  were  the  high 
ends  glowing  before  their  spirits  as  they  stepped  westward. 


President  Eaton.  5 

"And  who  would  stop  or  fear  to  advance 
Tho'  home  or  shelter  he  had  none, 
With  such  a  sky  to  lead  him  on!" 

These  pioneers  were  men  of  practical  sagacity.  Though 
they  had  such  visions,  they  were  no  visionaries.  Utopias 
had  no  charm  for  them.  It  was  here  and  now  that  they  pro- 
posed to  lay  the  foundations  for  a  noble  and  enduring  future. 
The  means  at  hand  might  be  painfully  inadequate;  it  mat- 
tered not.  They  could  make  inadequate  means  suffice  for 
adequate  ends.  They  could  find  a  way  to  build  churches, 
though  there  were  no  shingles  within  eighty  miles,  and  no 
money  to  buy  them  with.  They  could  found  colleges  in  the 
prairie  grass. 

These  pioneers  were  men  of  great  tenacity  of  purpose.  As 
their  mission  was  not  the  outcome  of  impulse  or  of  romautic 
thought,  but  was  fundamental  to  their  conception  of  their 
country's  life,  so  there  was  nothing  that  could  swerve  them 
from  their  adherence  to  their  determination.  Although  young 
men  they  were  not  raw  recruits.  They  had  the  spirit  of 
veterans.  They  could  make  long  marches,  and  what  they 
had  gained  they  could  hold,  though  it  must  needs  be  by  ly- 
ing low  in  the  trenches.  Others  might  be  daunted  and  give 
up  what  they  had  undertaken,  finding  the  way  too  toilsome, 
the  difficulties  too  great.  And  truly  had  these  men  been 
mindful  of  that  country  whence  they  came  out,  they  might 
have  returned  thither.  But  their  faces  were  set  forward, 
they  were  seeking  a  better  country.  They  believed  with  all 
their  hearts  that  they  were  sent  to  project  the  lines  of  de- 
velopment for  this  as  the  worthy  center  of  our  national 
being.  And  here  they  belonged  till  their  work  was  done. 
We  think  that  we  know  discouragements  and  difficulties, 
yet  what  stress  is  there  upon  our  purpose  to  compare  with 
the  strain  to  which  these  men  were  subjected,  for  whom 
faith  had  to  be  wholly  the  substitute  for  sight,  and  before 
whose  eyes  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes  must  at 


6  Baccalaureate  Sermon. 

times  have  seemed  further  off  the  further  they  plodded 
along  their  toilsome  way.  It  is  to  their  unconquerable  pur- 
pose in  the  midst  of  every  uncertainty,  difficulty,  and  dis- 
couragement that  we  owe  the  blessings  of  our  half-century. 

The  crowning  characteristic  of  these  fathers  of  the  Col- 
lege was  their  self -dedication.  Without  this  quality  vision 
may  be  but  the  programme  of  insatiable  ambition;  sagacity, 
the  equipment  for  its  attainment;  and  purpose,  the  pledge 
of  achievements  which  may  gratify  personal  ends  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  general  weal.  It  is  self-dedication  alone  that 
can  consecrate  these  qualities  to  ends  of  blessing. 

Public  attention  has  been  recently  called  to  two  typical 
characters.  One,  a  politician  of  great  ability  and  experience, 
imperial  in  will,  through  his  determination  to  dictate  and 
his  bitterness  when  thwarted  proved  bhe  ruin  of  a  national 
administration  and  became,  without  purposing  it,  the  occa- 
sion of  a  nation's  mourning.  The  other,  of  at  least  equal  cul- 
ture and  with  possibilities  of  as  great  preferment  in  civic  life, 
placed  all  his  gifts,  refinement  and  prospects  at  his  country's 
service,  accepting  the  perilous  command  of  a  regiment  of 
colored  soldiers,  execrated  by  the  slave-holding  Southern 
leaders,  by  whom,  if  taken,  he  would  have  been  shot  without 
mercy. 

"Right  in  the  van,  on  the  red  rampart's  slippery  swell, 

With  hearts  that  beat  a  charge  he  fell 

Foeward  as  fits  a  man; 

But  the  high  soul  burns  on  to  light  men's  feet 

Where  death  for  noble  ends  makes  dying  sweet." 

Not  less  pure  and  complete  was  the  self-dedication  of  our 
pioneers.  It  was  life  for  noble  ends  to  which  they  had  de- 
voted themselves,  life  of  fullest  devotion  to  a  Kingdom  of 
Christ  among  men.  Whether  that  life  were  to  be  longer  or 
shorter  was  not  in  their  reckoning.  When  the  end  came, 
although  not  on  the  red  rampart,  none  the  less  absolutely 
it  was  death  for  noble  ends. 


President  Eaton.  7 

It  was  such  manhood  as  this  on  which  the  prophet  had 
his  eye  when  he  said:     "A  man  shall  be   as  a  hiding-place 
from  the  wind  and  a  covert  from   the  tempest;  as  rivers  of 
water  in  a  dry  place;  as  the   shadow  of  a  great  rock  in   a 
weary  land."      His   words   become   luminous  to   us  in  the 
career  of  the  men  of  fifty  years  ago  whom  we  revere  to-day. 
The  bonds  of  society  are   relaxed  in   a  new  country.     The 
miner  with  his  many  generous  qualities  is  a  reckless  fellow 
who  drinks  deep  and  whose  knife  is  drawn  on  the  slightest 
provocation.      The   restraints  of  religion   lose   their  power 
with  an  emigrant  for  whom   no  church  bell  marks  the  dif- 
ference of  days.     The  eager   rush  for  the  farms  and  water 
privileges  of  a  fair  territory  may  become  a  selfish   and  de- 
moralizing scramble.     Respect   for   law   may   be  forgotten 
where  there  are  no  organized   courts  of  justice,  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  law  must   at  best   be  irregular.     Amid   the 
winds  and  tempests  of  this  exposed  life,  strong,  calm,  Chris- 
tian manhood  must  be  the  hiding  place  and  the  covert.     It 
was  the  men  whom  I   have  named,  and   how  many  others, 
their   worthy  peers,  farmers,    miners,    merchants,  lawyers' 
clergymen,  physicians,  manufacturers,  who  gave  coherence 
to  the  elements  of  civic  life  and  made  this  an  orderly  Chris- 
tian commonwealth. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  life  be  secure.  It  must  amount 
to  something,  it  must  come  to  something,  it  must  have  out- 
put. For  the  productiveness  of  life  in  a  new  region  there 
must  be  men  of  clear  thought  and  strong  conviction  to  guide 
the  mental  processes  of  a  new  people,  to  encourage  and 
direct  its  reading,  to  plan  and  administer  the  schools  and 
colleges  for  the  younger  generation.  This  work  these  men 
attempted  and  wrought  successfully.  They  became  rivers 
of  water  in  a  dry  place,  and  the  greenness  which  came  to  the 
land  through  them  has  not  been  local  like  the  fringing  of  a 
deep  and  quiet  pool.  Their  river  has  had  an  unresting  cur- 
rent; [it   has   literally    flowed    around    the    world.      Forty 


8  Baccalaureate  Sermon. 

other  colleges  have  been  fed  from  Beloit's  stream,  its  life 
imparted  to  their  life.  The  harvests  reaped  along  its  banks, 
what  man  can  measure? 

Another  need  of  a  new  community  as  of  all  communities 
is  the  re-creation  of  the  ideals  and  the  refreshment  of  the 
vital  powers  of  the  people.  "A  weary  land;"  how  expres- 
sive the  phrase  is  of  the  aspect  of  life  again  and  again,  when 
we  are  worn  with  its  struggles,  disheartened  at  its  failures, 
depressed  at  the  low  standards  of  living  that  prevail  and  by 
our  own  ineffective  attempts  to  surpass  them.  "A  great 
rock1'  resting  closely  upon  the  foundations  of  the  earth  and 
drawing  coolness  from  its  vast  interior,  how  fitly  its  shadow 
represents  the  influence  of  the  men  who  are  in  vital  touch 
with  the  Eternal  and  who  impart  its  vitality  to  those  draw- 
ing near  to  them  when  spent  of  strength  and  hope.  Aaron 
L.  Ohapiu,  Joseph  Emerson,  William  Porter,  J.  J.  Blais- 
dell;  have  not  these  been  for  many  years  as  the  shadow  of 
a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land,  and  does  not  that  shadow  still 
fall  upon  the  grateful  spirits  of  wearied  strugglers? 

All  civilization  is  built  up  on  manhood.  Every  new  con- 
tinent of  truth  must  have  its  Cabots  and  its  Columbus. 
Every  campaign  waits  on  great  generals  for  victory.  In  vain 
the  combination  of  the  allies  against  Napoleon  and  the  sub- 
sidies poured  forth,  until  a  Wellington  was  trained  and  put 
forward:  in  vain  the  costly  sacrifices  of  our  war  until  a  Grant 
was  prepared  to  lead  on  to  Richmond;  in  vain  the  Greeks 
defy  the  Turk  in  the  Hellenic  cause  without  wise  and  de- 
voted leaders.  Every  moral  campaign  must  have  like  leader- 
ship. It  is  the  John  Brights,  the  Gladstones,  the  Garrisons 
who  insure  the  triumph  of  great  causes.  And  leaders  must 
have  a  devoted  rank  and  file,  or  their  valor  and  skill  becomes 
a  splendid  but  unavailing  sacrifice. 

Not  less  important  is  the  truth  that  civilization  depends 
upon  manhood  for  its  permanence.  The  sudden  downfall  of 
civilizations  has  been  the  amazement  of  mankind.    But  when 


President  Eaton.  9 

they  totter  and  drop  to  pieces  it  is  always  and  only  when 
manhood  has  gone  out  of  them.  When  self-indulgence 
rules,  some  hardy  stock  supplants  the  degenerate  one.  When 
a  covetous  and  venal  spirit  prevails  it  shall  heap  up  treasure 
in  vain.  Some  new  might  will  be  disclosed,  some  tremen- 
dous gathering  of  moral  indignation,  some  power  that  shall 
not  regard  silver  nor  delight  in  gold,  and  the  rich  accumu- 
lations are  scattered  like  dust.  There  is  absolutely  no  secur- 
ity except  in  an  empowered  manhood,  clear-eyed,  strong- 
hearted,  loving  God  and  loviug  men  with  profound  and  in- 
telligent love. 

This,  then,  is  the  truth  that  both  memory  and  prophecy 
unite  to  utter,  that  both  gratitude  and  responsibility  press 
home  upon  us.  For  each  coming  year  as  for  the  fifty  years 
now  ended,  manhood  is  the  decisive  word.  If  we  have  not 
to  contend  with  the  difficulties  of  pioneer  life,  we  have  to 
grapple  with  the  problems  of  an  intricate  civilization,  the 
soil  in  which  materialism  strikes  deep  its  roots.  A  prosper- 
ous people  forget  God  or  worship  him  with  a  superficial 
self-satisfaction.  Knowledge  forgets  its  dependence  on  faith 
and  grows  arrogant  in  its  very  impotence.  Civic  trust  becomes 
the  plunder  of  the  enterprising  and  unscrupulous.  Vices 
fester  in  indolent  lives.  Wrong  becomes  intrenched  in  social 
custom.  Is  there  and  shall  there  be  manhood  ready  to  form 
the  battle-line  and  lead  the  forlorn  hope  against  such  mas- 
terful and  inveterate  evils? 

Manhood  is  not  self-creative.  It  is  a  divine  gift.  It  was 
God  who  gave  us  these  founders  and  to  Him  we  would  offer 
our  reverent  gratitude  today.  And  manhood  may  be  sought 
from  God  and  he  will  not  withhold  the  gift.  Manhood  may 
be  fostered  and  trained  by  right  surroundings,  by  worthy 
discipline.  It  is  for  the  training  of  masterful  manhood,  and 
high-visioned  womanhood  without  which  the  future  will 
wait  in  vain  for  its  men  fitly  trained  and  inspired,  that  Be- 
loit  College  enters  into  the  inheritance  of  the  half-century, 


10  Baccalaureate  Sermon. 

and  girds  itself  for  nhe  years  that  are  to  be.  Let  memory, 
love,  and  imagination  build  in  the  soul  of  each  of  us  a  West- 
minister Abbey  dedicated  to  the  men  of  our  commonwealths 
and  of  our  College,  where  their  true  lives  and  heroic  deeds 
shall  be  sculptured,  where  the  mellow  past  shall  enwrap 
them  in  softened  light  beautiful  as  that  which  steals  through 
painted  windows,  where  grateful  thoughts  shall  be  the  organ 
music  rolling  and  whispering  through  the  consecrated  places. 

"Be  mine  in  hours  of  fear 
Or  grovelling  thought,  to  seek  a  refuge  here; 
Where  bubbles  burst  and  folly's  dancing  foam 
Melts  if  it  cross  the  threshold." 

But  as  often  as  we  tarry  in  these  sacred  places  of  the 
heart  let  it  be  that  their  lives  may  re-inspire  us,  their  faith  re- 
animate us,  their  immortal  throng  of  witnesses  encompass 
us  as  we  go  forth  to  plant,  to  reap,  to  think,  to  write,  to 
plead,  to  smite,  to  bear,  for  God  and  Christ,  for  truth  and 
liberty. 

Brothers  of  the  Graduating  Class: 

A  unique  privilege  is  yours.  The  time  of  graduation  from 
college  is  a  marked  epoch  in  any  thoughtful  life,  when  the 
heart  beats  high  and  yet  when  reflection  tempers  enthusiasm. 
But  yours  is  placed  in  the  rich  setting  of  fifty  years.  The 
circle  of  a  half-century  is  now  completed,  and  you  join 
hands  with  those  who  were  the  first  students  of  the  infant 
college.  You  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  founders 
and  feel  the  touch  of  their  faith  and  courage,  like  a  proph- 
et's cloak  thrown  upon  your  shoulders.  Some  of  them, 
thank  God,  are  still  here  in  bodily  presence,  and  can  repre- 
sent the  rest  to  our  constructive  thought,  as  we  try  to  bring 
those  early  scenes  before  us.  The  whole  life  of  the  college 
is  thus  in  a  sense  gathered  into  your  field  of  vision.  You 
behold  the  men  of  fifty  years  ago,  conferring,  praying,  plan- 
ning upon  this  hill,  and  you  enter  into  their  faith,  the  ir 


President  Eaton.  11 

courage,  their  costly  sacrifices.  You  see  the  early  classes 
gathered,  and  note  the  fine  quality  of  their  manhood  and  the 
high  type  of  instruction  given  them.  You  see  the  early 
buildings  rising,  with  what  infinite  struggle,  but  with  such 
sagacious  and  conscientious  workmanship  that  no  crack  has 
yet  been  disclosed  in  the  walls  of  Middle  College.  You  hear 
the  drum-beat  of  a  free  nation  aroused  to  defend  its  heritage, 
and  you  are  stirred  with  the  sight  of  the  college  boys  drill- 
ing upon  the  campus  when  recitations  are  over,  and  present- 
ly shouldering  their  guns  and  marching  to  the  front,  boys 
as  they  were,  many  of  them  younger  than  the  youngest  of 
you;  yes,  young  as  you  were  when  you  were  freshmen;  leav- 
ing the  college  crippled  in  numbers,  but  on  its  altar  the 
fires  of  patriotic  faith  and  devotion  flaming  in  the  darkest 
night  of  national  disaster.  That  so  many  of  them  fell  "foe- 
ward  as  fits  a  man,1'  attests  the  stuff  of  their  young  man- 
hood. You  see  survivors  returning  to  college  life,  laying  off 
their  shoulder  straps  and  submitting  loyally  to  college  dis- 
cipline. You  see  sons  of  the  college,  an  increasing  com- 
pany, valiant  upon  a  hundred  battle  fields  of  service,  roman- 
tic or  prosaic.  You  come  to  your  own  college  days.  Some 
of  you,  who  were  academy  students,  have  felt  the  thrill 
of  great  gifts  to  the  college,  have  heard  the  sound  of  ham- 
mer and  trowel  upon  the  walls  of  Pearsons  Hall,  and  of  this 
Chapel,  where  you  stand  now  for  your  last  college  service, 
and  which  is  to  abide,  I  trust,  the  altar  of  your  hearts, 
whither  you  will  return  to  re-dedicate  your  manhood  to  all 
that  you  revere  and  love  in  Beloit. 

The  College  and  you  have  passed  through  deep  experiences 
together.  It  was  in  the  opening  weeks  of  your  senior  year 
that  the  chariot  of  God  swept  suddenly  close  to  us,  and  rapt 
away  one  more  beloved  than  we  trust  ourselves  to  tell.  Then 
it  was  that  we  learned  something  of  the  quality  of  your  man- 
hood. How  firmly  the  senior  class  stood  under  the  shock. 
Not  a  man  of  you  faltered  or  dropped  out  of  his  place;  your 


12  Baccalaureate  Sermon. 

constancy,  your  considerateness,  your  loyalty  will  be  an  en- 
during memory. 

And  so  you  go  out  to  do  men's  work  in  the  world.  You 
will  find  your  work,  and  you  will  accomplish  it.  May  all 
that  is  best  in  the  manhood  of  the  College's  half-century 
live  in  your  arm,  your  brain,  your  heart.  Some  of  you  may 
come  back  fifty  years  hence,  to  rejoice  in  the  College's 
rounded  century,  and  to  talk  of  these  ancient  days  of  '97. 
Then,  and  so  long  as  the  world  stands,  may  there  center  in 
Beloit  College  and  go  forth  from  it  clear-visioned,  resolute 
and  dedicated  manhood,  to  be  the  strength,  the  life,  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world. 


BELOIT'S  ENTHUSIASM  EOR  HUMANITY; 
ITS  SOURCE  AND  AIM. 


Address  Before  the  Christian  Associations. 


REV.  JAMES  D.  EATON,  '69,  CHIHUAHUA,  MEXICO. 

During  these  anniversary  days  there  will  be  many  to 
speak  of  the  early  conditions  and  events,  the  individual  and 
social  influences,  which  have  made  the  college  what  it  is, 
and  have  produced  certain  traits  of  character  in  the  body  of 
its  students  and  alumni.  For  the  past  explains  the  present; 
and  with  this  lesson  learned,  we  can  more  safely  venture 
upon  a  forecast  of  what  the  world  may  reasonably  expect  to 
gain,  in  high  impulse  and  fruitful  service,  from  the  young 
lives  still  to  be  nurtured  here. 

While  it  is  not  possible  to  make  a  thorough  and  complete 
analysis  of  the  formative  influences  which  have  been  at 
work  here  for  fifty  years,  we  may  distinguish  and  describe 
some  prominent  features  of  the  life  of  the  college,  which 
have  been  reproduced  in  the  lives  of  its  graduates  as  a 
whole,  thus  creating  what  might  be  termed  a  family  like- 
ness amongst  those  who,  while  working  out  widely  differ- 
ent problems  and  dealing  with  very  diverse  materials,  have 
yet  been  moved  by  kindred  sympathies  and  impulses,  and 
have  recognized  the  authority  of  the  same  guiding  principles. 

It  is  left  to  others  to  speak  of  what  has  developed  the  in- 
tellectual life  of  the  graduates;  what  has  created  a  thirst  for 
knowledge,  has  quickened  a  spirit  of  investigation,  and  al- 


14  Beloit's  Enthusiasm  for  Humanity. 

lowed  it  to  do  its  work  with  fearless  honesty,  saying  "Let 
what  will,  fall;  the  truth  of  God  will  stand  in  perfect  self- 
consistency,11  what  rich  fruits  have  been  gathered  through 
calm  reflection,  as  well  as  by  means  of  wide  acquaintance 
with  the  stimulating  thoughts  of  master  minds. 

But  before  these  Christian  Associations  it  falls  to  me,  as 
representing  particularly  one  group  of  the  alumni,  to  refer 
to  those  influences  in  the  college  which  have  nurtured  the 
missionary  spirit  amongst  its  graduates. 

You  will  please  observe  that  this  study  need  not  limit  our 
view  to  those  individuals  who,  under  the  impulse  of  this 
spirit,  have  been  led  to  undertake  a  work  in  foreign  lands. 
For  it  is  a  joy  to  recognize  the  close  kinship  uniting  them 
who  think  of  the  world  as  one,  just  as  God  is  one,  and  his 
truth  is  one,  and  who  know  that  the  basal  needs  of  men,  and 
the  remedy  for  their  errors  and  sins,  are  everywhere  the 
same. 

Our  concern  then  is  to  know  the  influences  which  have 
not  merely  produced  the  men  now  at  work  in  China  and 
Japan,  in  India,  Turkey  and  Mexico,  but  which  have  fur- 
ther nurtured  the  missionary  spirit  amongst  the  graduates 
of  the  college  as  a  whole. 

We  might  have  reversed  the  order  of  the  members  in  this 
sentence,  and  proposed  to  contemplate  that  missionary  spirit 
which  gave  birth  to,  and  nurtured  the  life  of  the  college. 

The  oft-told  story  of  how  devout,  far-seeing  men — and  wo- 
men too — prayed  and  gave  and  toiled,  in  order  that  the  col- 
lege might  be,  need  not  be  repeated  now;  but  this  brief  re- 
minder may  enable  us  the  better  to  understand  whence 
came  the  spirit  which  has  been  transmitted  from  class  to 
class,  widely  permeating  the  body  of  the  alumni. 

To  one  who  gains  acquaintance  with  the  various  move- 
ments of  those  earlier  days,  who  scans  the  written  records 
of  this  institution,  and  who  comes  into  touch  with  the  life 
which  has  animated  successive  generations  of  students,  and 


James  D.  Eaton.  15 

is  pulsing  strongly  through  the  scholarly  body  of  to-day, 
there  is  clearly  discernible  the  effectual  operation  of  certain 
master  principles  or  passions,  that  are  worthy  of  mention. 

(1)  First  may  be  named  a  spirit  of  Enterprise.     *     *     * 
Those  first  ministers  and  founders  and  instructors  were 

men  of  push  and  daring,  of  courage  and  endurance,  of 
consecrated  enterprise;  and  it  was  wholly  natural  that  they 
should  stamp  this  characteristic  of  theirs  upon  the  life  of 
the  college, — the  choicest  offspring  of  their  prayers  and 
sacrifices. 

(2)  Closely  allied  to  this  quality  is  that  of  Faith.  So  near 
is  the  resemblance,  that  in  the  business  world  enterprise 
often  passes  for  faith.     *     *     *     * 

The  faith  of  Jesus  was  a  principle, — vital,  persistent,  pro- 
ductive, working  in  all  those  to  whom  has  come  his  word; 
so  that  the  college  which  at  one  time,  as  Prof.  Emer- 
son has  said,  "was  just  a  prayer,"  but  from  the  first  was 
"rich  in  faith,1'  born  rich,  and  richly  nourished  by  faith- 
filled  prayer,  has  been  grandly  productive  of  men  in  all 
walks  of  life  who  have  believed,  and  therefore  have  spoken 
and  wrought,  have  loved,  suffered  and  triumphed. 

Enterprise  through  faith;  faith  working  out  in  forms  of 
Christian  enterprise;  the  same  heavenly  partnership  which 
was  suggested  in  the  noble  words  of  a  leader  in  the  first  up- 
rising of  missionary  enthusiasm  in  the  last  century,  William 
Carey,  who  said:  "Expect  great  things  from  God  (that  is 
faith);  attempt  great  things  for  God,11  (that  is  enterprise). 

(3)  Any  one  who  has  learned  to  say  that,  from  his  heart, 
has  within  himself  the  making  of  a  hero.  For  what  is  hero- 
ism? Is  it  not  simply  the  doing  of  one's  duty  with  calm 
resoluteness  in  the  face  of  whatever  difficulties  or  dangers? 
This  spirit  of  devotion  has  been  a  characteristic  of  the  in- 
fluential men  of  the  college  from  the  first,  manifested  in 
founders,  instructors,  and  the  graduates  most  truly  repre- 
sentative of  the  institution. 


16  Beloit's  Enthusiasm  for  Humanity. 

(4)  But  the  enlightened  Christian  knows  that  he  most 
surely  promotes  the  glory  of  God,  who  most  signally  ad- 
vances the  good  of  man.  And  it  has  been  the  endeavor  of 
the  college  to  teach  us,  her  children,  that  the  extent  of  our 
personal  endowments  and  acquisitions  should  be  regarded  as 
the  measure  of  our  debt  and  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  man- 
kind. 

What  has  been  the  response  to  such  instruction,  by  the 
young  lives  nurtured  here? 

When  the  college  was  but  fourteen  years  of  age  came  the 
call  to  save  the  country  from  disunion.  Up  to  that  time  there 
had  been  under  instruction  here,  including  the  preparatory 
department,  some  750  young  men,  of  whom  scarcely  500 
could  be  said  to  be  liable  to  military  duty.  Yet  400  went 
into  the  army,  46  of  these  laying  down  their  lives  in  the  na- 
tion's defense.  When  peace  had  been  restored,  and  the 
ranks  of  the  classes  filled  up  again  with  old  soldiers  and 
with  newer  students,  then  was  heard  more  distinctly  the 
continuing  call  to  save  the  world;  and  within  the  next  ten 
years  the  college  sent  into  the  foreign  field,  under  commis- 
sion from  our  own  American  Board,  more  men  than  did  any 
other  college  under  Congregational  auspices,  with  but  two 
exceptions,  Yale  and  Amherst.  With  Yale,  it  was  tied;  by 
Amherst  alone  was  it  surpassed. 

During  those  ten  years  it  was  the  same  college  it  had  been 
during  the  preceding  four,  from  1861-65.  The  same  spirit- 
ual life  was  pulsing,  in  professors  and  students,  throughout 
both  periods;  but  as  it  was  confronted  with  different  condi- 
tions, so  it  manifested  its  vitality  in  diverse  ways. 

If  the  inquiry  proposed  at  the  beginning  were  to  be  put 
to  those  of  us  who  heard  the  inspiring  address  in  the  college 
chapel  on  Memorial  Day,  that  magnificent  setting  forth  of 
the  master  motives  which  swayed  certain  of  our  brothers  in 
their  bearing  of  witness  to  truth  and  right,  undoubtedly  the 
confident  reply  would  be,  ua  marked  influence  in  the  college 


James  D.  Eaton.  17 

which  has  nurtured  the  missionary  spirit  amongst  its  gradu- 
ates has  been  the  spirit  of  Professor  Emerson  himself."  For 
not  only  did  he  bear  a  leading  part  in  those  movements 
which  contributed  most  obviously  to  the  development  of 
that  spirit,  (such  as  the  Sunday  morning  Bible  class,  meet- 
ing in  his  then  new  house,  for  the  study  of  the  journeys  and 
labors  of  the  model  missionary,  St.  Paul;  as  the  sustaining 
of  mission  Sunday  Schools  in  districts  lying  all  about  this 
town;  as  the  daily  college  prayer  meeting  which  was  estab- 
lished by  the  old  soldiers  who  came  back  to  finish  their  course 
of  study,  and  who  had  been  helped  by  our  revered  instructor 
to  see  that  amongst  us  boys  who  were  found  in  the  classes 
in  September,  1865,  they  might  work  as  missionaries,  kin- 
dling in  our  hearts  a  little  flame  of  devotion  to  the  same  high 
ideals  which  they  cherished;  as  the  occasional  addresses 
glowing  with  patriotic  fervor  which  were  delivered  by  him 
in  the  height  of  the  conflict  and  on  notable  days  of  remem- 
brance of  that  warfare; — not  only  in  these  more  obvious  ways, 
but  through  all  his  daily  intercourse  with  the  studeuts,  in 
the  class  room  and  elsewhere,  he  was  helping  them  to  pic- 
ture to  their  minds,  ever  more  clearly  and  influentially,  the 
Christian  hero,  trustful,  courageous,  strong,  gentle,  gener- 
ous toward  all. 

The  same  life-current  pulses  in  the  college  to-day,  and 
more  abundantly  as  the  body  is  larger  grown.  What  is  to 
be  its  special  manifestation  in  the  closing  years  of  this  cen- 
tury and  at  the  opening  of  the  next?  We  cannot  surely 
foretell.  Its  graduates  may  not  be  pre-eminently  soldiers, 
not  yet  foreign  missionaries;  but  lovers  of  their  country  and 
their  kind,  in  the  worship  and  service  of  God,  we  know 
they  will  be.  For  what  else  could  they  be  who  loved  the 
now  sainted  J.  J.  Blaisdell,  and  learned  to  love  others 
through  loving  him  who  in  so  large  and  deep  a  way  loved 
his  land  and  the  world!  Contributing  his  giffted  personality 
to  the  college,  a  little  later  than  did  Chapin  and  Emerson, 


18  Beloifs  Enthusiasm  for  Humanity. 

Bushnell  and  Porter,  he  yet  furnished  a  large  share  of  the 
vital  force  which  is  felt  to-day,  as  far  as  the  sons  of  the  col- 
lege have  gone.  He  was  himself  a  signal  illustration  of  the 
"all  around"  working  of  the  missionary  spirit.  Recognized 
as  a  leader  in  evangelistic,  educational  and  reformatory 
movements,  he  demonstrated  in  his  own  person  the  priceless 
value,  to  men  considered  as  social  and  moral  beings,  of  any 
one  whose  nature  is  widely  open  to  celestial  influences.  Be- 
cause he  had  so  fully  received  the  spirit  of  the  Great  Master, 
his  own  heart  glowed  with  a  holy  enthusiasm  for  humanity. 
Though  we  may  not  see  again  the  flash  of  his  eye,  nor  hear 
the  penetrating  tones  of  his  sympathetic  voice,  may  we  be 
always  ready  like  him  to  suffer  with  (for  that  you  know  is 
truly  to  sympathize  with)  burdened  souls,  and  to  rejoice 
with  them  that  win  victories  over  selfishness  and  wrong. 

There  are  large  and  difficult  problems  to  be  worked  out  by 
this  generation.     *     *     *     * 

For  such  difficult  service  is  required  a  spirit  of  enterprise, 
of  faith,  of  heroism,  of  forgetfulness  of  self,  not  inferior  to 
that  which  we  feel  should  animate  the  foremost  of  foreign 
missionaries.  Will  the  sons  whom  Beloit  has  nurtured,  be 
equal  to  this  demand?  I  seem  to  hear  them  say,  in  calm 
determination,  and  in  reliance  upon  a  strength  and  wisdom 
not  their  own,  we  will.  In  such  a  life  of  service  for  others, 
there  may  not  be  so  much  that  appeals  to  our  sense  of  the 
heroic  and  sublime,  as  shone  forth  in  the  unflinching  devo- 
tion of  C.  Frank  Gates,  in  the  face  of  Turkish  incendiarism, 
murder  and  outrage,  and  in  his  Christlike  ministry  through 
weary  months  to  the  surviving  victims  of  that  terrific  perse- 
cution,— a  devotion  and  ministry  worthily  recognized  by  the 
University  of  Edinburgh. 

In  such  service  there  may  not  be  so  romantic  a  forgetful- 
ness of  self  as  led  another  of  our  brothers,  A.  C.  Wright,  to 
leave  the  last  one  of  his  student  traveling  companions  in 
order  to  preach  the  gospel  in  a  remote  Mexican  pueblo,  and 


James  D.  Eaton.  19 

then  journey  alone  through  the  wild  Sierras,  scaling  moun- 
tain passes  and  fording  swollen  streams  in  the  rainy  season, 
exposed  to  the  rays  of  a  southern  sun,  for  six  perilous  days, 
far  liom  human  habitation,  during  three  of  which  he  saw 
not  a  human  being  on  the  trail.  But  faithfulness  to  high 
ideals  under  the  ordinary  conditions  of  a  daily  grapple  for 
existence,  may  demand  as  fine  a  type  of  heroism,  even  a 
diviner  sort  of  self-effacement,  whose  worth,  although  the 
biographers  of  famous  men  may  fail  to  record  it,  the  Master- 
builder  of  the  world  and  human  society  will  appreciate,  and 
will  know  how  to  use,  and  to  reward. 

"'If,'1  says  Archdeacon  Farrar,  "we  make  of  this  world,  so 
far  as  we  are  concerned,  a  world  'wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness,' so  far  do  we  anticipate  the  fruition  of  the  new  world, 
the  new  Jerusalem. '* 

"And  wouldst  thou  hasten  in  another  soul 

God's  Kingdom,  on  the  earth,  of  love  and  peace? 
Learn  lirst  thyself,  thy  spirit  to  control; 

From  all  that's  false  and  evil  in  thee,  cease, 
Nor  think  that  suddenly  the  reign  shall  come. 

With  pomp  and  glory  for  the  outward  eye; 
Within,  around  thee,  in  thine  earthly  home 

The  Kingdom  of  the  Lord  is  drawing  nigh! 
As  shines  the  light  with  still  increasing  ray, 

Till  from  the  earth  the  brooding  night  has  fled, 
So  in  man's  spirit  comes  the  eternal  day, 

As  gently  as  the  dawn  its  beams  has  spread: 
Till  all  within  and  all  around  is  bright, 

And  the  whole  world  rejoices  in  its  light  " 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE 
BUST  OF  DR.  CHAPIN. 


PROFESSOR    WILLIAM    PORTER. 

I  remember  that  Dr.  Chapin  once  asked  me  to  find  for 
him  a  passage  in  Tacitus,  in  which  the  author  tells  what  be 
thinks  of  statues  made  of  marble  or  of  bronze,  as  expres- 
sions of  loving  regard  for  the  honored  dead.  He  does  not 
disallow  them,  but  he  thinks  there  is  a  finer,  a  more  personal 
way  of  doing  honor  to  a  true,  great  life.  The  sculptor's 
hand  may  give  back  to  us  almost  the  living  form  of  one 
we  have  known  and  loved;  it  may  be  cut  from  the  purest 
marble,  but  after  all  it  was  a  stranger's  hand  that  formed 
it,  and  the  material  out  of  which  it  was  wrought  is  foreign 
and  cold.  So  Tacitus  would  teach  us  that  we  honor  most 
those  whom  we  love  best,  by  enshrining  their  living  pres- 
ence in  our  warm  hearts,  by  letting  their  strong,  pure,  brave 
lives,  with  their  divine  touch  and  more  than  sculptor's  skill, 
mould  our  lives  into  the  likeness  of  what  was  best  in  theirs. 
We  pay  them  the  highest  honor  within  our  reach,  when  we 
catch  the  spirit  of  their  loftiest  aims  and  purposes,  and  let 
them  lift  us  up  on  the  high  places  where  they  walked  with 
God.  And  so  we  help  to  make  their  influence  and  their 
lives  immortal.  For  it  may  well  be  true,  in  the  economics 
of  God's  working,  that  there  is  never  in  any  genuine  soul 
a  noble  impulse,  a  high  resolve,  a  purpose  born  of  God,  that 
does  not  register  itself  in  other  souls,  and  so  take  its  place 
among  the  great  spiritual  forces,  that  never  cease  to  work 


Professor   William  Porter.  21 

in  human  lives.  This,  we  believe  to  be  the  supreme  signifi- 
cance of  such  a  life  as  Dr.  Chapin's,  and  this,  the  truest 
way,  in  which  to  do  it  honor.  Long  ago,  you  know,  and  far 
away  beyond  the  seas,  it  was  said,  that  not  by  flowers  fall- 
ing from  the  sky,  not  by  the  song  of  angel  choirs,  is  the 
teacher  honored,  but  the  disciple,  who  shall  fulfill  all  the 
greater  and  the  lesser  virtues,  by  him  is  the  teacher  honored. 
Such  honor,  in  generous  measure,  from  multitudes  of  loving 
hearts  and  loyal  lives,  all  round  the  world,  has  already  come 
to  attest  the  genuineness  of  this  life,  and  its  abiding  in- 
fluence.    And  there  is  nothing  that  can  take  its  place. 

Yet  we  make  no  mistake,  when  we   gather  thus,  on  this 
great  day,  to  do  this  especial  honor  to  the  memory  of  Dr. 
Chapin.     It  is  right,  so  our  hearts  say,  it  is  even  the  more 
fitting,  because  his  life  is  so  complete  in  its  rounded  perfect- 
ness  that  he  needs  it  less,  that  we  ask  the  marble  and  the 
hand  of  the  sculptor  to  bring  back  again,  for  other  genera- 
tions of  students   to  look   upon,  the  form   and  the  features 
that  so  live  in  our  memory.     This  glad  fiftieth  anniversarv 
of  the  College  would  be  less  complete  without  this  new  re- 
minder of  him,  who  stood  so  close  to  the   beginnings  of  its 
life,  and  who  gave  to  it  so  largely  its  distinctive  character. 
For  forty  years  Dr.  Chapin  was  a  part  of  the  best  life  of 
this  community.     For  forty  years  the  College  was  his  life. 
He  lived  in  it  and  for  it.     He  had  faith   in  it,  as  a  part  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth.     He  gave  to  it,  joyfully 
and  without  stint,  his  best.     It  was  the   inspiration  of  his 
life  to  be  always  at  his  best  that  he  might  give  to  it  a  larger 
service.     His  devotion  was  supreme  and  exacting.     He  never 
spared   himself  when  duty  called.     His  life  was  genuinely 
and  most  abundantly  a  life  of  service.     And  it  was  service 
rendered  graciously  and  wisely,  for  it  was  in  his  heart  to  do 
it;  it  was  the  law  of  his  life.     So  it  was  of  his  Master's  life. 
His  work  was  largely  out  of  sight,  laying  foundations  for 
a  growth,  that  was  yet  to  come.    But  so  clear  was  his  vision 


22  Address  at  Unveiling  of  Bust  of  Dr.  Chapin. 

of  the  future  of  the  College,  so  assured  his  faith  in  God's 
plan  for  its  life  and  growth,  that  he  could  do  his  work  with 
the  most  careful  fidelity  and  thoroughness,  with  an  energy 
that  never  rested,  and  a  patience  that  never  grew  weary,  and 
then  wait  for  what  he  might  never  see. 

He  did  live  to  see  a  growth,  perhaps  beyond  his  largest 
hope.  And  it  was  the  untold  blessing  of  the  silent  years  of 
his  physical  disability,  that  he  could  see  the  administration 
of  the  College  carried  on  with  such  marked  wisdom  and  suc- 
cess, by  one  whom  he  had  selected  to  take  his  place  and 
whom  he  honored  and  loved;  that  he  could  see,  first  one 
new  building,  needed  for  the  growth  of  the  College  carried 
up  to  its  completion,  then  another,  then  another  still,  our 
beautiful  Chapel,  then  a  fourth  rising  to  make  the  equip- 
ment for  the  College  life  so  nearly  complete.  Then  when 
his  son  received  the  appointment  to  take  up  the  father's 
work  of  instruction,  there  seemed  to  be  no  reason  why  our 
love  and  prayers  should  keep  him  longer  away  from  his 
home  in  heaven. 

Such  a  life,  loyal  and  true  always,  lived  in  the  presence  of 
many  generations  of  students,  choice  men,  picked  men,  so 
many  of  them  were,  was  ever  holding  up  before  them  a  high 
ideal  of  lofty  purpose  and  genuine  manliness,  of  loyalty  to 
duty  and  supreme  faith  in  God.  Under  the  inflence  of  such 
teachings  and  ideals,  many  a  life,  we  do  not  know  how 
many,  grew  strong  and  clean  and  thoughtful,  and  went  out 
to  do  its  work  with  higher  purpose  and  larger  results  be- 
cause Dr.  Chapin  had  been  teacher  and  friend.  Some  of 
them,  I  think,  have  already  found  him  on  the  other  shore, 
and  have  told  him  what  his  life  meant  to  them. 

But  I  can  bring  you  only  a  suggestion  of  thoughts  and 
feelings  and  memories,  that  will  spring  unbidden  in  many 
hearts,  as  we  unveil  this  bust,  and  let  the  living  presence  of 
the  teacher  and  friend  speak  to  us,  with  something  of  his 
old  graciousness  and  power. 


Professor   William  Porter.  23 

[Here  the  bust  was  unveiled  by  Lucius  Chapin  Porter,  Dr.  Chapin's 
grandson,  the  congregation  standing.] 

May  I  add,  for  myself  and  for  many  of  you,  a  word  of 
most  grateful  appreciation  of  the  sculptor's  skill  and  work, 
that  one,  who  never  saw  the  face  of  Dr.  Chapin,  has  caught 
so  finely  and  expressed  so  truly,  the  spirit  of  the  life  that 
spoke  through  it,  and  made  it  mean  so  much  to  us. 

And  may  I  also  add  the  expression  of  our  united  and 
hearty  thanks  for  the  generous  though tfulness  of  the  friend, 
who  has  presented  to  the  College  this  memorial  of  one,  who 
was  of  kin  to  her,  and  whom  she  loved  and  honored,  that  it 
might  keep  the  lesson  of  his  life  ever  fresh,  a  living  pres- 
ence and  power,  as  the  generations  of  students  come  and  go. 


The  bust  of  Dr.  Chapin  by  Lorado  Taft  was  presented  to  the  College  by  Mrs. 
J.  A.  Rumrill,  of  Springfield,  Mass. 


THE  EARLY  FACULTY  OF  BELOIT  COLLEGE. 


PROFESSOR   JOSEPH    EMERSON". 

If  the  word  faculty  signifies  the  vital  force,  by  which  an 
organism  is  a  living  power,  we  cannot  say  that  the  first  per- 
manent instructors  of  Beloit  College  were  its  first  Faculty. 
Its  first  constructors  were  full  of  that  living  spirit,  which 
formed  the  College.  For  spirit  is  older  than  body.  That 
spirit  was  born  in  the  hearts,  and  formed  in  the  minds,  and 
it  wrought  in  the  work  of  Aratus  Kent  and  Stephen  Peet, 
of  Aaron  L.  Chapin  and  Flavel  Bascom  and  Samuel  W.Eaton 
and  G.  S.  F.  Savage,  all  sons  of  Yale,  and  in  the  sons  of 
other  colleges,  and  in  others  who,  though  not  graduates, 
were  sharers  in  that  liberal  education  which  colleges  had 
spread  through  the  East.  Such  were  Dexter  Clary  and  Al- 
fred Field,  and  Lucius  Fisher  and  Horace  Hobart  aud  Horace 
White.  It  lived  then  and  lives  now  also  in  such  women  as 
Mrs.  Clary  and  Mrs.  Field,  whom  we  rejoice  to  have  still 
with  us,  and  in  the  Lucius  Fishers  and  Horace  Hobarts  and 
Horace  Whites  of  to-day. 

Nor  were  those  first  professors  the  first  teachers  of  the 
College.  Gratefully  we  join  in  the  thanksgiving  of  Sereno 
T.  Merrill,  the  first  instructor  and  still  the  wise  and  honored 
trustee  of  the  College. 

There  were  also  five  young  men,  the  first  students  of  the 
College,  whose  hearty  interest  made  them  already  a  part  of 
its  vital  force,  foreshadowing  the  standing  which  they  and 
all  true  sons  of  Beloit  were  to  hold  in  that  order  of  liberally 
educated  men,  who  are,  or  should  be  the  Faculty  of  civilized 


Professor  Joseph  Emerson.  25 

humanity.  They  and  their  loyal  successors  were  and  have 
always  been  most  efficient  helpers  in  forming  and  develop- 
ing the  life  and  work  of  the  College. 

To  a  College  thus  already  instinct  with  life  came  two 
young  men.  They  had  been  classmates  at  Yale.  One  of 
them  had  been  teaching  there  and  the  other  would  have 
been  with  him,  had  he  not  preferred  to  continue  in  the  work 
of  building  the  excellent  College  of  the  Western  Reserve  in 
Ohio.  But  though  even  his  alma  mater  could  not  call  him 
back,  a  new  enterprise  in  the  heart  of  the  nation  could  and 
did  call  him  on,  and  in  the  month  of  April,  1848,  Jackson  J. 
Bushnell  arrived  in  Beloit.  It  was  an  event  of  no  small 
moment  for  the  city  as  well  as  for  the  College.  A  man  so 
full  of  mind  which  sought  only  for  the  truth,  so  full  of 
enterprise  which  aimed  only  to  do  good,  so  regardful  of 
every  other  one  and  so  forgetful  of  himself,  so  full  at 
once  of  the  highest  ideals  and  of  the  most  practical  efficiency, 
could  not  be  hid  or  be  in  the  rear,  whenever  and  wherever 
there  was  any  good  to  be  done  or  any  wrong  to  be  righted. 
No  one  could  associate  with  him  and  not  become  a  better 
man.  The  character  of  the  man  infused  itself  into  that  of 
his  fellow  citizens,  his  colleagues  and  his  pupils.  It  goes 
with  them  all  round  the  world.  Everywhere  it  is  that  spirit 
of  earnest  loyalty  which  is  the  brand  of  Beloit,  and  in  which 
the  spirit  of  President  Chapin  and  that  of  Professor  Bushnell 
are  so  finely  blended. 

Through  our  first  quarter  century,  though  with  some  in- 
terruption caused  by  his  devotion  to  public  interests,  Profes- 
sor Bushnell  filled  worthily  the  department  of  mathematics 
and  physical  science.  In  the  enlargement  of  the  College  the 
department  has  been  resolved  into  that  of  mathematics  and 
physics,  now  so  well  filled  by  Professor  Thomas  A.  Smith, 
and  that  of  astronomy,  which  with  much  more  of  the  life  of 
the  College  owes  such  a  debt  to  the  excellent  care  of  Profes- 
sor Charles  A.  Bacon. 


26  The  Early  Faculfy  of  Beloit  College. 

If  the  personality  of  Jackson  J.  Bushnell  could  not  be 
hidden  in  his  official  position,  it  was  to  his  younger  associate, 
to  whom  fell  the  ancient  classics,  a  joy,  like  that  of  the 
morning  stars,  to  be  lost  in  the  light  which  it  was  his  privi- 
lege to  introduce.  Homer  and  iEschylus,  Socrates,  and 
Plato  and  Demosthenes  are  not  dead  or  emeriti.  Were  they 
ever  more  alive  than  when  they  came  into  the  minds,  the 
hearts,  the  souls  of  the  young  men  who  were  to  reproduce 
Marathon  and  Salami's  at  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg? 
What  could  one  ask  more  than  to  stand  in  the  shade  and  to 
see  such  light  flow  into  such  souls? 

When  the  department  came  to  be  divided  it  was  a  fresh 
satisfaction,  which  is  still  a  part  of  the  joy  of  this  jubilee,  to 
have  the  Roman  sternness  purified  and  sanctified  by  Chris- 
tian grace.  Cicero  and  Virgil  are  more  themselves  as  intro- 
duced by  William  Porter.  Also,  as  we  pass  into  the  new 
era,  which  the  civilization,  born  in  Greece,  is  now  entering, 
it  has  been  thrilling  to  see  the  Greek  philosopher  living 
again  in  such  a  representative  as  Professor  Blaisdell.  And 
now,  as  the  half  century  closes,  the  electric  light  in  which 
Greek  life  and  art  are  presented  under  such  a  hand  as  that 
of  the  younger  Theodore  Lyman  Wright,  aided  by  the  equip- 
ment provided  by  another  son  of  Beloit  and  of  a  father  of 
Beloit,  the  younger  Lucius  G.  Fisher,  shines  on  with  glad 
hope  into  the  future. 

In  connection  with  the  resurrection  of  fine  art  in  our 
Greater  Greece,  could  you,  or  could  the  truth  excuse  the  re- 
serve, which  should  abstain  from  the  mention  of  Mrs.  Helen 
Brace  Emerson,  the  founder  of  the  department  of  fine  art, 
and  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Battell  Eldridge  and  of  other  friends  who 
have  endowed  and  developed  it,  until  its  collections  now  fill 
our  former  chapel.  Let  us  hope  that  the  instruction,  which 
had  been  so  hopefully  begun  may  be  successfully  renewed. 
The  old  Greek  bards  themselves,  to  whom  we  have  assigned 
positions  in  our  primeval  faculty,  would  rejoice  to  see  how 


Professor  Joseph  Emerson  27 

our  President  Eaton  and  our  Professors  Sleeper  and  Allen 
have  organized  a  department  of  sacred  music,  which  is  daily 
filling  not  only  their  especial  pupils  but  our  whole  College 
with  those  harmonies,  through  which  we  may  become  better 
members  and  better  leaders  in  the  harmonies  of  a  better  life. 
The  department  of  languages  has  also  gladly  welcomed 
the  modern  tongues  under  the  able  introduction  of  Professors 
Hendrickson,  Whittlesey,  Dawson  and  Pearson.  So  we  go  on 
to  complete  our  connection  with  the  thoughts  and  enthusi- 
asms of  the  living  present,  as  well  as  with  those  of  the  liv- 
ing past  and  to  press  on  with  them  into  the  great  life  of  the 
future. 

The  solid  thought  of  mathematics  and  physics,  and  the 
high  thought  and  rhythmic  enthusiasm  of  the  classics  and 
the  manifold  voice  of  language  do  not  fill  the  whole  capacity 
of  man,  and  the  faculty  of  the  College  could  not  be  com- 
plete without  an  interpreter  of  nature.  From  the  Green 
Mountains,  from  Middlebury,  came  Dr.  Stephen  Pearl  Lath- 
rop,  a  naturalist,  a  chemist,  a  physician,  a  Christian  gentle- 
man and  a  true  man.  His  valuable  service  was  cut  short  for 
us  by  his  removal  to  our  State  University  and  soon  after 
closed  by  his  decease.  His  remains  rest  in  our  own  cemetery, 
and  we  are  thankful  that  his  worthy  wife  is  still  among  us. 
The  work  of  his  department  of  chemistry  has  been  well 
maintained  by  such  successors  as  Henry  B.  Nason,  Elijah  P. 
Harris,  James  H.  Eaton  and  C.  G.  Wheeler,  until  now  the 
far-east  as  well  as  the  far-west  come  for  counsel  to  our  Pro- 
fessor,— Erastus  G.  Smith. 

The  second  quarter  century  has  seen  the  development  of 
the  cognate  department  of  geology,  under  such  sons  of  the 
College  as  Thomas  C.  Chamberlin  and  Rollin  D.  Salisbury, 
and  now  by  a  son  also  of  the  first  graduate  of  the  College, 
Professor  George  L.  Collie,  while  still  another  alumnus, 
Hiram  D.  Densmore,  is  professor  of  botany  and  biology. 

As  the  College  and  its  classes  advanced,  there  was  need  of 


28  The  Early  Faculty  of  Beloit  College. 

a  president,  and  a  president  was  not  far  to  seek.  Rev. 
Aaron  L.  Chapin  had  been  a  large  part  of  the  heart  and 
hand  and  soul  of  the  enterprise  from  the  beginning,  and  his 
associates  felt  that  he  was  the  man  to  conduct  it  to  its  ac- 
complishment. Forty  years  of  good  service  have  attested 
the  correctness  of  their  judgment.  His  colleagues  in  the 
board  of  trust  will  bear  witness  to  the  wisdom  and  adminis- 
trative capacity  which  led  the  College  through  its  early  and 
its  later  struggles  and  achievements.  His  colleagues  in  the 
faculty  and  his  pupils  well  remember  the  faithfulness  and 
the  kindness,  the  aptness  and  ability,  with  which  he  guided 
the  home  life  of  the  College.  He  came  to  be  known 
throughout  and  beyond  the  land  as  the  man  for  counsel  in 
a  local  or  an  international  emergency,  and  the  sunlight,  in 
which  the  young  College  on  the  prairies  was  growing  so 
wholesomely,  shone  peace  back  to  the  Atlantic  and  to  the 
Bosphorus. 

It  is  a  great  satisfaction  of  this  jubilee  that  his  presidency 
is  held  to-day  by  such  a  pupil  as  Edward  D.  Eaton,  and  his 
professorship  by  such  a  son  as  Robert  C.  Chapin. 

But  again  college  or  individual  must  look  inward  and  up- 
ward as  well  as  out  upon  nature  and  on  man,  and  before  we 
had  a  senior  class  we  had  a  senior  professor  in  the  depart- 
ment of  psychology.  A  senior  professor,  indeed,  was  Miles 
P.  Squier.  For,  though  some  of  us  had  more  of  youthful 
spirit  and  enthusiasm,  he  belonged  to  the  former  generation 
and  linked  us  to  that  ante-natal  faculty  of  Beloit  to  which 
we  have  alluded.  He  was  born  in  the  year  1792  and  gradu- 
ated at  Middlebury  in  1811,  the  same  year  in  which  Ralph 
Emerson,  the  father  of  his  Beloit  colleague,  graduated  at 
Yale.  The  two,  Emerson  and  Squier,  were  classmates  and 
roommates  at  Andover  Theological  Seminary.  Lines  of  life, 
which,  however  divergent,  were  still  governed  by  the  same 
motives,  brought  both  together  in  their  last  days  to  share  or 
to  witness  a  realization  of  their  aims  in  the  building  of  Be- 


Professor  Joseph  Emerson.  29 

loit  College.  The  elder  of  them  remained  in  New  England, 
but  his  influence  was  always  telling  upon  the  west,  even 
upon  our  west.  He  became  a  tutor  at  Yale,  and  there  he 
taught  Aratus  Kent.  He  was  pastor  in  Connecticut  and 
there  he  taught  Stephen  Peet.  He  was  almost  persuaded  to 
accept  the  first  presidency  of  the  Western  Reserve  College, 
and  he  did  send  his  eldest  son  there  as  pupil.  His  work  for 
a  quarter  century  as  professor  at  Andover  trained  men  who 
came  to  our  prairies,  and  when  he  rested  from  those  labors, 
he  and  his  devoted  wife  came  gladly  to  where  their  children 
had  already  gone  and  gave  the  evening  of  their  days  to  en- 
thusiastic and  largely  fruitful  sympathy  and  endeavor  for 
Beloit  College. 

Meanwhile  the  other  classmate,  Miles  P.  Squier,  went  to 
the  front,  like  our  Professor  Bushnell.  He  explored  for  the 
Home  Missionary' Society  the  forests  of  western  New  York, 
and,  declining  a  tutorship  in  his  alma  mater,  revived  the  first 
church  in  Buffalo,  which  had  been  broken  up  in  its  infancy 
by  the  war  of  1812,  and  became  its  first  pastor.  Then  upon 
a  partial  failure  of  health,  he  gave  his  efforts  to  the  first  be- 
ginnings of  the  Auburn  Theological  Seminary.  Then  he 
built  the  Geneva  Female  Seminary  and  the  Geneva  Lyceum 
for  young  men,  especially  for  those  preparing  for  education 
for  the  Christian  ministry.  But  his  quick  ear  caught  the 
first  movements  for  the  Beloit  College,  and  from  1845  on- 
ward his  heart  and  that  of  his  congenial  wife  were  here,  and 
in  1849  he  received  and  in  due  time  accepted  the  professor- 
ship of  philosophy,  giving  the  endowment  as  well  as  his  own 
devotion  and  wish. 

He  used  to  come  when  the  spring-time  came,  and  to  re- 
vive our  flagging  minds,  and  to  call  us  to  thoughts  deep  and 
high,  and  clothed  in  wise  words,  which  were  to  him  simple 
as  the  prattle  of  a  child.  For  he  was  always  as  sage  as 
Plato  and  as  young  as  Homer.  Would  that  he  and  his  noble 
wife  were  here  to  unite  their  enthusiasm  with   our  thanks- 


30  The  Early  Faculty  of  Beloit  College. 

givings  for  the  fulfillment  of  their  prayer. 

Most  richly  were  those  prayers  answered  in  the  life  and 
teachings  of  the  saintly  intellect,  which  has  formed  the 
minds  and  souls  of  the  sons  of  Beloit  for  so  many  blessed 
years.  In  how  many,  even  of  this  audience,  does  the  soul 
of  James  J.  Blaisdell  live  to-day.  May  his  successor  be  a 
like  dispenser  of  blessing! 

If  a  man  be  full  of  thought,  knowledge  and  spirit,  human 
and  Divine,  he  still  needs  the  faculty  of  speech,  and  the 
Faculty  of  Beloit  was  not  complete  till  the  coming  of  the 
first  professor  of  rhetoric. 

Franklin  W.  Fisk  was  the  valedictorian  of  the  Yale  class 
of  1849,  of  which  the  salutatorian  was  Timothy  Dwight, 
now  the  president  of  Yale  University;  and  Joseph  Hurlbut 
who  was  for  two  years  an  instructor  at  Beloit,  ranked  with 
them,  and  Isaac  E.  Carey,  who  is  also  on  the  roll  of  our 
teachers,  was  close  to  them.  While  Dwight  remained  to 
develop  into  a  university  the  home  Yale,  which  the  spirit  of 
his  grandfather  had  made  so  great  as  a  College,  his  three 
peers  came  to  aid  their  former  teacher  in  the  endeavor  to 
reproduce  Yale  College  upon  the  prairies.  Mr.  Fisk  had 
achieved  his  education  by  the  force  of  his  own  will  and 
character,  and  his  power  was  already  felt  in  the  world  when 
he  came  to  inaugurate  in  Beloit  a  department  which  has 
ever  since  been  a  large  part  of  the  power  of  the  College, 
largely  through  the  impulse  which  he  gave  to  it  before  he 
was  called  to  the  work  of  his  life  in  the  Chicago  Theological 
Seminary.  That  impulse,  with  the  large  development  given 
by  such  a  master  of  thought  and  of  utterance  as  Professor 
Blaisdell,  and  by  the  classic  intelligence  of  Henry  Dickinson, 
E.  G.  Miner  and  L.  S.  Rowland  and  by  the  practical  effi- 
ciency of  Professors  H.  M.  Whitney  and  Louis  E.  Holden,  in 
the  two  departments  which  now  continue  it,  has  been  and 
will  be  a  voice  known  and  felt  in  the  world.  Beloit  College 
has  something  to  say;  she  means  something,  and  she  wishes 


Professor  Joseph  Emerson.  31 

for  the  voice  not  of  Gorgias  but  of  Demosthenes. 

In  speaking  of  the  early  faculty  of  Beloit  we  must  not 
forget  those  young  men,  selected  from  the  best  graduates  of 
the  best  colleges  of  the  East,  who  came  to  aid  for  longer  or 
shorter  time  in  the  collegiate  or  the  preparatory  departments. 
From  Yale,  beside  the  three  from  the  class  of  1849,  of  whom 
we  have  spoken,  there  were  Thomas  S.  Potwin,  Franklin 
C.  Jones,  William  D.  Alexander — afterward  president  of 
Oahu  College,  Henry  S.  DeForest,  president  of  Talladega 
College,  and  Fisk  P.  Brewer,  professor  in  Iowa  College. 
From  Princeton  came  Lewis  C.  Baker,  and  from  Amherst 
William  EJ.  Ward,  the  editor  of  the  Independent,  Moses 
Stuart  Phelps,  professor  at  Middlebury,  and  Lucius  D. 
Chapin,  pastor  at  Ann  Arbor.  Necessity  required,  as  it  still 
requires,  provision  for  preparatory  institutions,  a  wholesome 
necessity,  enabling  to  begin  the  training  of  manly  character 
nearer  to  the  time  when  character  takes  its  manly  tone. 
The  results,  under  the  conduct  of  such  men  as  John  P. 
Fisk,  Ira  W.  Pettibone,  W.  W.  Rowlands  and  Thomas  D. 
Christie,  with  the  young  men,  principally  from  our  own  Col- 
lege, who  assisted  them,  prepared  for  the  work  of  Almon  W. 
Burr,  whose  thought  and  will  and  work  are  now  such  an  in- 
spiration not  only  in  our  own  school  but  throughout  the 
system  of  Christian  academies,  which  are  now  a  constella- 
tion of  best  omen  in  all  our  region. 

As,  in  the  outset  are  counted  the  early  students  with  the 
early  teachers  among  those  who  made  Beloit,  so  we  ought  to 
count  the  early  and  the  later  teachers  with  all  the  students 
among  those  whom  Beloit  had  made.  For  the  teacher  re- 
ceives as  well  as  gives,  and  pupil  and  teacher  alike,  as  they 
have  breathed  together  the  air  of  Beloit,  and  fed  together 
upon  the  thoughts  of  all  ages,  and  all  the  words  of  God 
which  gather  here,  have  been  forming  themselves  for  places 
in  that  order  of  liberally  educated  men,  who  are  to  be  the 
faculty  of  a  liberated  world.     In  such  a  faculty  Aaron  L. 


32  The  Early  Faculty  of  Beloit  College. 

Chapin,  with  his  forty  years  of  presidency  here,  may  have 
received  more  than  the  student  of  a  four  years'  course.  But 
whoever,  in  years  or  in  months  has  breathed  enough  of  the 
air  of  Beloit  to  catch  the  spirit  of  Beloit,  is  of  her  company. 

A  half  century's  account  of  blessing  and  giving  illustrates 
the  expansive  character  of  liberal  education. 

Beloit  has  received  from  thirteen  other  colleges,  one  presi- 
dent, twenty  professors,  and  twenty  other  teachers.  Beloit 
has  given  to  forty  colleges,  sixteen  presidents,  thirty  profes- 
sors and  twenty-five  other  teachers  or  officers.  If  we  add 
our  other  educators,  and  physicians,  and  jurists,  and  editors, 
who  are  a  specialty  of  Beloit,  and  our  clergymen  and  home 
and  foreign  missionaries  and  our  business  men,  whose  op- 
portunity and  whose  work  is  an  immense  factor  in  the  ex- 
tension of  liberal  education,  what  shall  we  count  the  contri- 
bution already  made  to  the  advancement  of  mankind?  How 
shall  we  remember  that  later  faculty  of  Beloit,  who  are  now 
carrying  on  the  alma  mater's  teaching  in  all  right  lines  of 
life  all  round  the  world?  If  the  early  faculty  of  Beloit  re- 
joice in  the  work  of  the  later  faculty  in  the  home  college, 
we  must  all  rejoice  together  in  that  greater  faculty  of  the 
greater  Beloit,  who  are  doing  the  part  of  their  alma  mater 
in  the  spreading  through  the  earth  of  that  liberty  in  which 
the  truth  maketh  free. 


THE  EARLY  TRUSTEES. 


REY.    G     F.    S.    SAVAGE,    D.    D.,   CHICAGO. 

The  Trustees,  and  the  Development  of  the  College  under 
their  Guardianship,  is  the  topic  assigned  to  me. 

A  Christian  college  which  is  to  live  and  prosper  and  be  a 
perenuial  fountain  of  blessings  to  coming  generations  must 
have  a  Christian  origin.  In  this  respect  Beloit  College  was 
happily  favored.  It  had  its  first  inception  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  that  group  of  intelligent  and  consecrated  men  who 
counseled  together  in  the  cabin  of  a  lake  steamer  in  1844. 
This  consultation  resulted  in  the  calling  of  the  conventions 
held  here  in  1844-45  by  representatives  of  Presbyterian 
and  Congregational  churches  in  Wisconsin  and  Northern 
Illinois,  and  the  College  had  a  truly  Christian  birth  in  the 
hearts,  the  counsels  and  the  prayers  of  these  men  of  Grod,  in- 
spired as  we  believe,  by  his  Spirit,  and  actuated  by  the  purest 
and  noblest  motives. 

These  founders  of  Beloit  College  were  men  of  rare  worth, 
wise  in  counsel,  and  efficient  in  action,  men  who  had  knowl- 
edge of  the  times  in  which  they  lived,  and  foresight  of  the 
future  uto  know  what  Israel  ought  to  do." 

The  motto  adopted  for  the  seal  of  the  College  expresses 
the  character  of  its  founders  and  the  motives  which  governed 
them  in  what  they  did:     "Scientia  vera  cum  fide  pura." 

They  laid  deep  and  broad  the  foundations  of  a  Christian 
educational  institution,  upon  which  others  might  build 
securely  and  prosperously,  and  committed  to  a  select  board 
of  trustees  the  responsibility  of  carrying  forward  the  work 
so  happily  and  hopefully  begun  by  themselves. 


34  The  Early  Trustees. 

It  is  more  especially  of  this  first  board  of  trustees,  to 
whom  was  entrusted  the  guardianship  of  the  College  a  half 
century  ago,  that  I  am  to  speak.  And  who  and  what  were 
those  men  who  constituted  that  first  board  of  trustees, 
—the  charter  members,— whom  it  delights  us  all  to  hold  in 
grateful  remembrance,  on  this  jubilee  occasion?  And  what 
were  the  responsibilities  which  they  assumed,  and  their 
qualifications  to  meet  them  successfully?  In  answering 
these  questions  let  me  first  call  the  roll  of  their  names. 

Reverends  Aratus  Kent,  Stephen  Peet,  Aaron  L.  Chapin, 
Dexter  Clary, Flavel  Bascom,  Calvin  Waterbury,  Jedediah  D.' 
Stevens,  and  Ruel  M.  Pearson;  also  Messrs.  George  W. 
Hickcox,  Augustine  Raymond,  Charles  M.  Goodsell,  Ephraim 
H.  Potter,  Lucius  G.  Fisher,  Wait  Talcott,  Charles  S.  Hemp- 
stead and  Samuel  Hinman.  Eight  clergymen,  and  eight  lay- 
men, all  good  men  and  true,  leaders  in  the  churches  which 
they  represented,  and  equally  divided  between  Wisconsin  and 
Illinois.  Alas!  No  one  of  the  noble  band  remains  with  us, 
to  witness  the  wonderful  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  Col- 
lege so  dear  to  their  hearts,  and  to  share  with  us  in  the  re- 
joicings of  this  jubilee  year.  And  yet  may  we  not  believe 
that  their  sanctified  and  glorified  spirits  join  to-day  in  our 
doxology  of  praise  and  thanksgiving,  for  what  God  has 
wrought  in  and  through  this  beloved  institution  in  the  fifty 
years  of  its  existence? 

I  wish  that  we  had  a  photograph  of  those  trustees  assem- 
bled at  their  first  meeting,  October  23d,  1845,  as  they 
prayed,  and  counseled  together;  how  without  funds,  without 
a  campus,  without  a  building,  without  a  library,  or  scientific 
apparatus,  without  a  faculty,  with  only  a  name  to  begin 
with,  they  could  develop,  and  build  up  a  Christian  college, 
which  should  be  the  worthy  peer  of  long  established  and 
fully  equipped  eastern  institutions. 

As  it  was  my  privilege  to  know  them  all,  and  to  be  inti- 
mately associated  with  several  of  them,  you  will  pardon  me, 


Rev.  G.  F.  S.  Savage.  35 

for  speaking  more  particularly  of  a  few  of  the  number  as 
they  impressed  me  in  their  official  relations  as  Trustees  of 
the  College.  The  impress  of  their  moulding  power  has 
been  an  abiding  influence  for  good  upon  the  College  in  all 
its  subsequent  history. 

Foremost  among  them  would  be  seen,  that  sterling  Puri- 
tan, Rev.  Aratus  Kent,  an  ardent  lover  of  education  and  re- 
ligion, the  first  president  of  the  board,  which  office  he  held 
four  years,  until  1850,  when  the  newly-elected  president  of  the 
college  became  ex-officio  president  of  the  board  of  trustees, 
and  Mr.  Kent  was  made  vice-president,  which  office  he  held 
until  the  time  of  his  death. 

He  was  a  man  of  unbending  integrity  and  of  unyielding 
principles;  a  strict  economist,  yet  public-spirited,  generous, 
and  self-sacrificing  for  the  good  of  others.  A  graduate  of 
Yale  College,  when  he  first  came  West  as  a  pioneer  home 
missionary,  he  said,  "If  there  is  a  place  so  hard,  that  others 
will  not  go  there,  send  me  to  that  place;11  and  he  was  sent 
to  an  exceedingly  difficult  field,  two  hundred  miles  beyond 
any  organized  Protestant  church.  The  spirit  of  the  man  is 
illustrated  in  the  closing  sentences  of  his  charge  to  Presi- 
dent Chapin  at  his  inauguration,  "Take  this  charter  and  ob- 
serve its  provisions.  Execute  these  laws  with  the  firmness 
of  Caesar,  and  with  the  meekness  of  a  Christian.  Make  the 
impress  of  this  seal  the  symbol  of  literary  eminence  un- 
rivaled between  the  oceans.1' 

Rev.  Stephen  Peet,  another  of  the  charter  trustees,  was, 
perhaps,  more  than  any  other  man  the  originator  of  the 
College,  and  he  served  as  a  trustee  with  untiring  energy  and 
fidelity,  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  ten  years  later. 

He  was  a  man  of  God,  fertile  in  plans  and  resources  and 
characterized  by  sound  judgment,  good  common  sense,  and 
executive  ability.  The  College  was  dear  to  his  heart,  and  he 
devoted  himself  with  enthusiasm  to  labors  for  its  welfare, 
enlisting  others  also  in  its  support,  and  securing  large  addi- 


3®  The  Early  Trustees. 

tions  to  its  funds  in  the  time  of  its  greatest  needs.  He  was 
deeply  interested  in  promoting  the  higher  Christian  educa- 
tion in  the  new  West,  and  Beloit  College,  and  Chicago  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  are  enduring  monuments  of  his  successful 
efforts  to  secure  such  institutions  as  he  earnestly  desired, 
and  labored  to  have  established. 

Intimately  associated  with  these  two  leaders  in  the  enter- 
prise, a  charter  trustee,  a  member  of  the  executive  commit- 
tee, and  the  secretary  of  the  board,  until  the  time  of  his 
death,— half  the  life  of  the  College,— was  another  honored 
name,  that  of  Rev.  Dexter  Clary. 

For  nearly  thirty  years  he  devoted  the  best  energies  of 
his  mind  and  heart,  in  these  official  relations  to  the  welfare 
of  the  College.  With  conscientious  fidelity  and  promptness, 
did  he  discharge  the  responsible  duties  devolved  upon  him, 
and  in  manifold  ways,  to  the  extent  of  his  ability  did  he  con- 
tribute essentially  to  its  growth  and  prosperity/ 

But  to  no  one  of  the  trustees  does  the  College  owe  a  larger 
debt  of  gratitude  than  to  him  whose  benignant  and  life-like 
features,  sculptured  in  enduring  marble,  are  unveiled  before 
us  to-day,  and  whose  name  and  deeds  will  be  held  in  honored 
and  loving  remembrance  while  the  College  exists.  President 
Aaron  Lucius  Chapin's  life  was  identified  with  the  College 
from  its  first  inception  as  a  founder,  trustee  and  president. 
From  the  time  of  the  first  consultation  of  the  friends  of 
college  education,  in  the  cabin  of  that  memorable  lake 
steamer,  he  was  inspired  with  the  need  and  the  practicability 
of  establishing  in  this  new  West  a  Christian  college  which 
would  in  time  become  a  worthy  peer  of  the  best  Eastern 
colleges.  He  gave  his  after-life,  at  the  call  of  duty,  to  the 
planting  and  up-building  of  such  an  institution.  His  thirty- 
six  years  of  administration  as  president  of  the  College  and 
forty-seven  years  service  as  a  trustee,  and  member  of  the  ex- 
ecutive committee  attest  his  ability  and  success  in  the  re- 
sponsible work  committed  to  his   hands.     He  outlived  all 


Rev.  G.  F.  S.  Savage.  37 

those  associated  with  him  in  the  first  board  of  trustees,  and 
was  privileged  to  witness  and  rejoice  in  the  already  blessed 
fruitage  of  their  united  labors. 

The  time  allotted  to  this  address  forbids  us  to  speak  in 
detail  as  our  hearts  would  dictate  of  the  other  clerical  mem- 
bers of  that  first  board  of  trustees,  Reverends  Flavel  Bascom, 
Calvin  Waterbury,  Jedediah  D.  Stevens  and  Ruel  M.  Pearson, 
efficient,  genial,  wise-hearted  men,  who  contributed  much  by 
their  counsels,  prayers  and  influence  to  the  success  of  the 
enterprise. 

But  we  should  not  fail  to  name  as  equally  worthy  of  grate- 
ful remembrance  on  this  jubilee  occasion  those  honored  and 
beloved  laymen  associated  with  them,  who  contributed  so 
much  of  time,  thought,  labor,  business  experience  and  finan- 
cial aid  to  make  the  enterprise  a  complete  success.  They 
planned  and  counseled  wisely,— they  labored  faithfully,  and 
contributed  generously  to  build  a  Christian  college  worthy 
of  the  name,  upon  the  broad  foundation  which  had  been  laid 
at  the  beginning. 

Special  mention  should  be  made  of  Mr.  Lucius  G.  Fisher, 
to  whose  influence,  gifts,  and  personal  sacrifices,  the  College 
is  largely  indebted  for  its  admirable  location,  and  whose 
valuable  services  as  a  trustee  were  continued  to  the  end  of 
his  useful  life. 

And  what  was  true  of  that  first  board  of  trustees,  in  their 
devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the  College,  and  their  fidelity  in 
discharge  of  the  trust  committed  to  them,  I  hazard  nothing 
in  saying,  has  been  equally  true  of  their  successors  in  the 
trust.  They  have  been  and  are  men  to  whose  wisdom,  busi- 
ness sagacity,  fidelity,  and  love  for  the  College,  its  interests 
could  safely  be  entrusted.  The  harmony  which  has  charac- 
terized their  deliberations  and  the  unity  of  action  which  has 
resulted  are  an  occasion  for  devout  thankfulness. 


And  now  from  what  and  to  what  has  the  College  developed 


38  The  Early  Trustees. 

under  the  guardianship  of  its  trustees  in  the  fifty  years  of 
its  existence? 

The  first  board  was  elected  in  October,  1845.  The  same 
year  the  location  of  the  College  was  fixed  by  a  convention  of 
the  churches,  on  this  border  line  of  the  great  common- 
wealths of  Wisconsin  and  Illinois; — the  form  of  a  charter 
was  agreed  upon;  and  beyond  that  the  enterprise  was  com- 
mitted to  the  trustees  to  develop  and  carry  forward  to  its 
completion.     The  College  at  this  time  was  only  a  name. 

What  more  was  required  to  give  to  it  a  reality,  and  secure 
its  permanency,  growth  and  prosperity?  An  act  of  incor- 
poration must  be  obtained;  an  eligible  site,  or  campus,  must 
be  secured;  buildings  must  be  erected;  funds  collected,  and 
students  enrolled. 

In  1846.  largely  through  the  self-sacrificing  liberality  of 
Mr.  Fisher,  one  of  the  trustees,  a  campus,  like  Jerusalem  of 
old,  beautiful  for  situation,  was  provided.  The  same  year  a 
charter  was  granted  by  the  territorial  legislature  of  Wiscon- 
sin. Funds  were  contributed  sufficient  to  begin  the  work. 
The  corner  stone  of  the  first  building,  the  venerable  Middle 
College,  was  laid  June  24th,  1847,  amid  great  rejoicings,  the 
president  of  the  board  of  trustees,  Father  Kent,  laying  the 
corner  stone.  The  same  year  was  gathered  the  first  class  of 
five  students,  in  the  basement  of  the  first  Congregational 
church,  under  the  temporary  instruction  of  the  now  vener- 
able and  honored  trustee,  Mr.  Sereno  T.  Merrill.  But  one 
thing  more  was  wanting  as  essential  to  the  establishment, 
permanent  growth  and  usefulness  of  a  Christian  college,  and 
without  which  all  else  was  in  vain,  viz.,  a  cultured,  scholarly, 
devoted  Christian  faculty. 

This  was  supplied  the  following  year,  when  the  now 
sainted  Professor  Jackson  J.  Bushnell,  and  our  beloved  Pro- 
fessor Joseph  Emerson,  classmates  at  Yale  College,  upar 
nobile  fratrum,"  were  elected  to  professorships,  the  one  of 
mathematics  and  natural  philosophy,  and  the  other  of  Ian- 


Rev.  G.  F.  S.  Savage.  39 

guages,  and  entered  with  enthusiasm  and  whole-hearted  con- 
secration upon  their  duties,  doing  the  work  of  a  whole 
faculty. 

Such  was  the  small  beginning.  What  have  we  now  at 
the  end  of  a  half  century? 

The  board  of  trustees  has  been  enlarged  from  sixteen  to 
thirty-two.  Ten  clergymen  and  twenty-two  laymen:  twenty 
from  Illinois  and  twelve  from  Wisconsin.  Eighty-four  in  all 
have  served  in  this  capacity :  thirty-eight  clergymen  and  forty- 
six  laymen,  of  which  number  forty  were  from  Illinois,  and 
forty-four  from  Wisconsin ;  of  these  twenty-six  have  finished 
their  earthly  course  and  entered  upon  the  reward  of  their 
labors.  Our  campus  has  been  enlarged  and  made  both  attract- 
ive and  useful.  Grounds  for  the  Women's  department,  re- 
cently established,  with  their  five  cottages,  have  been  secured, 
also  an  ample  athletic  field. 

In  place  of  one  solitary  building,  half-finished  in  1847, 
nearly  a  score  of  buildings  adapted  to  various  needs  have 
been  erected.  Among  them  the  Memorial  Library  Building, 
erected  in  memory  of  the  patriot  college  students,  over  400 
in  number,  who  enlisted  in  the  Union  Army,  4(>  of  whom 
gave  their  lives  for  the  life  of  the  nation;  Pearsons  Hall  of 
Science,  Chapin  Hall,  Scoville  Academy,  Smith  Observatory, 
and  the  beautiful  Chapel,  enduring  monuments  of  the  wise 
and  large-hearted  generosity  of  the  men  and  women,  who 
by  princely  gifts  furnished  the  needful  funds  for  their  erec- 
tion. 

The  College  has  in  buildings  and  grounds,  library  and  ap- 
paratus, art  and  museum  collections,  property  in  the  use  of 
the  College  of  the  estimated  value  of  $380,000.  Endow- 
ment funds  for  the  support  of  the  College  have  multiplied 
many-fold.  Beginning  a  half  century  ago,  without  an  en- 
dowment of  any  kind,  we  now  have  the  partially  or  fully 
endowed  professorships,  named  for  the  donors,  of  Williams, 
Brinsmade,  Squier,  Root,  Hale,  Harwood,  and  Knapp;  and 


40  The  Early  Trustees. 

of  permanent  funds  the  Emerson,  Colton,  Talcott,  Bushnell, 
and  Davis  library  funds;  the  Dodge  educational  fund;  the 
Logan  prize  fund;  the  Porter  missionary  fund;  the  Bacon 
student's  aid  fund;  theEldridge  art  fund;  the  Joseph  Emer- 
son fund;  the  Edward  Ely  fund;  the  Science  Hall  fund; 
and  largest  of  all,  the  D.  K.  Pearsons  fund.  Altogether, 
assets  of  half  a  million,  in  addition  to  those  before  named. 

But  gratifying  as  is  this  result,  the  present  imperative 
needs  of  the  College,  to  put  it  on  a  secure  and  permanent 
basis,  for  its  highest  usefulness,  demands  that  this  amount 
be  duplicated.     Can  it  not  be?     And  at  an  early  day? 

Should  I  not  add  in  this  connection,  that  we  have  an  hon- 
est treasurer  and  assistant  treasurer;  sagacious,  faithful  and 
experienced,  to  care  for  the  funds  entrusted  to  their  keeping 
and  investment. 

.We  have  a  board  of  instruction,  of  whom  Professor  Emer- 
son has  spoken,  increased  from  two  in  1848  to  twenty-three, 
viz.,  seventeen  professors  and  six  instructors;  able,  scholarly 
men,  heartily  devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  College,  well 
qualified  to  instruct,  and  under  the  lead  of  a  president  who 
commands  the  highest  respect,  confidence  and  love  of  all  as- 
sociated with  him,  or  who  know  him. 

There  has  been  gathered  a  well-selected  library  of  24,000 
volumes  and  7,000  pamphlets,  and  the  various  departments 
of  science  are  furnished  with  valuable  apparatus,  adapted  to 
their  needs. 

We  have  a  large  and  loyal  body  of  alumni, — the  best  liv- 
ing capital  of  the  College, —  who  have  confidence  in  and  love 
for  their  alma  mater,  and  are  ever  ready  by  purse  and  in- 
fluence to  aid  in  its  highest  development  and  usefulness. 
The  classes  enrolled  are  largely  increased  in  numbers.  Over 
four  thousand  students  have  at  some  time  been  connected 
with  the  institution,  and  five  hundred  and  twenty  have  gradu- 
ated from  it. 

And  what  is  of  essential  value,  the  College  has  behind  it 


Rev.  G.  F.  S.  Savage.  41 

an  enlarged  constituency,  who  have  shown  their  love  for  it, 
and  their  appreciation  of  the  work  which  it  has  done,  and  is 
doing,  and  it  is  embosomed  in  an  intelligent  community,  who 
have  ever  been  ready,  loyally  to  plan,  and  labor,  and  sacrifice 
for  its  support. 

And  now  with  such  a  history  as  the  College  has  behind 
it,  to  inspire  with  faith,  hope  and  courage;  with  grand  possi- 
bilities of  enlargement  and  usefulness  opening  before  it;  with 
a  location  unsurpassed  in  attractiveness;  with  a  president  to 
lead  in  whose  ability  and  wisdom  all  have  confidence;  with 
a  cultured,  scholarly  and  Christian  faculty;  with  a  helpful 
alumni,  and  a  host  of  tried  friends  who  will  not  desert  it; 
and  with  abiding  faith  in  the  continued  favor  of  our  ^God, 
who  has  done  great  things  for  us  in  the  past,  may  we  not 
enter  upon  another  half-century  with  assured  trust,  and 
joyful  expectation,  that  Beloit  College  will  continue  to  be 
w.hat  Dr.  Pearsons  has  affirmed  it  now  is, — uthe  brightest  star 
in  the  constellation  of  Western  colleges"? 


EPOCHS  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 
COLLEGE. 


PROFESSOR   R.    C.    CHAPIN. 

A  noble  continuity  has  characterized  the  life  of  the  Col- 
lege. The  changes  that  mark  the  successive  epochs  in  her 
history  have  been  changes,  not  in  ends,  but  in  the  means  of 
attaining  those  ends.  The  College  has  moved  with  the 
society  in  which  it  is  placed.  On  the  one  hand,  the  rapid 
development  of  the  wealth  of  the  country  and  the  conquests 
of  inventive  skill  and  scientific  research  have  given  her  new 
implements  for  training  and  teaching,  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  changing  world  of  life  without  has  made  new  de- 
mands on  those  who  are  to  bear  a  man's  part  in  its  affairs. 

The  College  has  felt  the  wonderful  political  and  social 
changes  since  1847,  and  the  scarcely  less  revolutionary 
changes  in  educational  methods  during  the  same  period. 
But  her  aim  has  been  the  same,  a  "liberal,  Christian  educa- 
tion.'" Her  whole  history  is  a  consistent  interpretation  of 
the  motto  upon  her  seal,  "true  science  with  pure  faith."  If 
knowledge  has  claimed  a  wider  scope,  and  faith  a  deeper 
sacrifice,  she  has  exhibited  throughout  the  same  steadfast 
devotion  to  both. 

We  may  distinguish  four  well-defined  epochs  in  the  life 
of  the  institution,  each  of  about  twelve  years.  First  is  the 
formative  period,  from  1847  to  the  election  of  Lincoln;  then 
the  war  period,  extending,  with  its  influences,  down  to  about 
1873;  third,  the  period  of  intensive  growth,  to  the  inaugura- 
tion of  President  Eaton  in  1886;  and  finally  the  era  of  ex- 


Professor  B.  C.  Chapin.  43 

tensive  growth  with  which  the  half-century'closes. 

First  we  see  the  College  of  the  New  Northwest,  located  in 
that  territory  which,  admitted  to  the  Union  in  1848,  made 
a  more  rapid  increase  in  population  during  the  decade  in 
which  the  College  was  founded  than  any  of  her  sister  states. 
Pioneer  life  finds  expression  in  all  the  experiences  of  the 
infant  institution,  both  before  and  after  the  laying  of  the 
corner-stone  of  Middle  College, —  the  initial  event  in  our 
College  era. 

The  instructive  story  of  the  genesis  of  the  College  has 
often  been  recited,  but  it  is  fitting  that  it  be  reviewed  once 
more.  Into  the  fertile  prairies  of  Wisconsin  and  Illinois 
were  pouring,  in  the  years  following  1840,  the  sons  of  New 
England.  These  settlers  brought  their  ideas  with  them, 
and  were  seeking,  as  rapidly  as  possible,  to  embody  these 
ideas  in  institutions  which  should  both  give  them  form  for 
the  present  and  perpetuate  them  in  the  future.  The  higher 
Christian  education  was  one  of  these  cherished  ideas,  dear  to 
their  hearts  from  the  first.  In  1842  and  1843  at  least  two 
definite  plans  were  discussed  in  their  ecclesiastical  gather- 
ings, and  one  for  a  college  colony  at  Beaver  Dam  had  made 
considerable  progress  before  its  impracticability  was  demon- 
strated. 

The  sentiment  in  favor  of  establishing  a  college  was  crys- 
tallized into  action  by  a  convention  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  in 
June,  1844,  at  which  representatives  of  all  parts  of  the 
Northwest  discussed  the  religious  needs  of  the  whole  region. 
One  evening  at  this  convention  was  occupied  by  addresses 
on  behalf  of  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Collegiate  and 
Theological  Education  at  the  West,  organized  in  New  York 
in  1843.  The  secretary  of  this  society,  Rev.  Theron  Bald- 
win, was  a  passenger  on  the  steamer  Chesapeake,  which  car- 
ried homeward  the  delegates  from  beyond  Lake  Michigan. 
A  conference  of  seven  of  these  men  in  the  stateroom  of 
Stephen  Peet,  then  agent  for  Wisconsin  of  the  American 


44  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

Home  Missionary  Society,  bore  fruit  in  the  calling  of  a  con- 
vention, which  met  at  Beloit,  Aug.  7,  1844,  composed  of 
fifty-six  delegates  from  Wisconsin,  Illinois  and  Iowa. 

The  task  before  the  convention  was  not  only  to  rally  an 
interest  in  the  founding  of  colleges  for  the  rapidly  growing 
commonwealths,  but  also  to  secure  the  concentration  of  that 
interest  upon  a  few  properly  located  institutions.  Hence 
the  caution  which  prolonged  the  deliberations  through  three 
subsequent  conventions  before  the  matter  could  be  handed 
over  to  the  corporation,  appointed  by  the  last  of  the  four  in 
October,  1845. 

The  first  convention  recommended  the  establishment  of 
one  college  for  Iowa  and  of  a  college  and  a  female  seminary 
for  Northern  Illinois  and  Wisconsin,  "one  to  be  located  in 
Northern  Illinois  contiguous  to  Wisconsin,  and  the  other  in 
Wisconsin  contiguous  to  Illinois."  Iowa  accordingly  was 
left  to  proceed  by  herself,  and  a  committee  of  ten  was  ap- 
pointed to  receive  propositions  for  a  location  for  the  Illinois- 
Wisconsin  college  and  report  to  the  next  convention  in 
October. 

But  at  this  second  convention  was  developed  some  dissent 
from  the  policy  of  uniting  the  two  states  in  support  of  a 
college  near  the  border,  and  hence  the  question  was  referred 
back  to  the  churches,  who  were  to  express  their  mind  in  a 
third  convention,  which  met  at  Beloit,  May  27, 1845.  After 
protracted  discussion,  the  plan  of  one  college  and  one  female 
seminary  for  the  two  states  was  re-affirmed  by  a  vote  of 
sixty-three  to  one.  This  vote  virtually  decided  also  the 
location  of  the  college  at  Beloit,  for  Beloit  was  the  border 
town  which  had  been  in  the  minds  of  the  leaders  from  the 
outset,  and  her  interest  in  the  enterprise  had  been  mani- 
fested by  an  offer  from  her  citizens  of  a  site  and  $7,000,  "to- 
gether with  their  sympathies,  prayers  and  future  efforts.'1 

The  convention  therefore  then  passed  as  a  matter  of 
course  a  resolution  locating  the  college  at  Beloit,  and  ap- 


Professor  R.  C.  Chapin.  45 

pointed  a  committee  of  ten  to  draw  up  a  charter  and  a  list 
of  trustees,  both  to  be  presented  to  the  fourth  convention, 
Oct.  21,  1845.  This  convention  accepted  the  trustees  and 
charter  as  recommended,  and  left  further  arrangements,  in- 
cluding the  locating  of  the  seminary,  in  the  hands  of  the 
sixteen  trustees.* 

Eight  of  the  sixteen  were  ministers,  eight  laymen;  eight 
were  from  Wisconsin,  eight  from  Illinois;  eight  were  Pres- 
byterians, eight  Congregationalists.  Mr.  Peet  states  that 
the  denominational  distribution  was  an  accident,  while  the 
geographical  location  was  carefully  studied.  A  majority  of 
the  ministerial  incorporators,  including  Peet,  Kent  and 
Chapin,  were  graduates  of  Yale,  whose  influence  appears  at 
many  points  in  the  subsequent  history. 

The  trustees  immediately  met,  Oct.  23,  1845.  After  prayer 
they  chose  Rev.  Aratus  Kent  as  president  and  Rev.  Dexter 
Clary  as  secretary.  The  charter  fared  hardly  at  the  hands 
of  the  territorial  legislature,  owing  to  influences  unfavorable 
to  religion,  if  not  to  education.  Amendments  were  inserted 
restricting  the  sphere  of  operations  to  the  town  of  Beloit, 
and  prohibiting  religious  tests.  So  dissatisfied  were  the' 
trustees,  that  they  voted  (April  14,  1846)  not  to  accept  the 
charter  on  these  terms,  but  in  October,  finding  that  valuable 
time  would  be  lost  by  waiting  for  a  new  legislature,  they 
reconsidered  their  action  and  found  that  no  practical  diffi- 
culties had  been  imposed  by  the  amendments. 

The  formal  organization  completed,  the  college  was  ready 
to  take  on  the  material  and  personal  equipment  for  its  work 
of  instruction.  The  lots  comprising  the  most  beautiful 
part  of  the  campus  were  deeded  to  the  board,  and  the  visitor 
to  the  village  in  October,  1846,  was  shown,  amid  the  brush, 
the  stakes  that  marked  the  ground-plan  of  Middle  College. 
At  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone,  June  24,  1847,  Mr.  Peet 

*The  names  of  the  sixteen  charter  members  head  the  list  of  the  trustees  as 
printed  in  the  appendix  to  this  pamphlet. 


46  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

announced  the  gift  from  Hon.  T.  W.  Williams,  of  New  Lon- 
don, Conn.,  of  $10,000  in  western  lands  to  endow  a  professor- 
snip.* 

The  organization  of  classes  could  not  wait  for  the  comple- 
tion of  the  building  nor  the  engagement  of  the  professors 
about  whom  much  correspondence  had  already  been  carried  on 
The  famous  "Old  Stone  Church,"  which  had  sheltered  the 
conventions,  offered  its  hospitable  basement.  The  Beloit 
Seminary,  established  in  1844,  had  candidates  ready  for  the 
freshman  class,  and  its  accomplished  principal,  Mr  S  T 
Merrill,  was  ready  to  carry  them  along  with  their  college 
studies.  Accordingly,  Nov.  4,  1847,  a  class  of  four  (within 
a  week  increased  to  five)  was  admitted,  after  examination 
by  Mr  Merrill  and  the  trustees,  to  entrance  upon  a  course 
of  study  drawn  up  exactly  on  the  Yale  plan. 

The  founders  of  the  College  had  realized,  from  the  first, 
that  their  reliance  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  high  pur- 
poses must  be,  not  upon    buildings  nor  endowments,   but 
upon  men.     And  they  chose  well   the  men  to  whom  they 
entrusted  the  life  of  the  new-born  College.     After  Professor 
Emerson  s  survey  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  do  more  than 
to  note  the  dates  in  1848,  when  he  and  Professor  Bushnell 
entered  upon  their  life-work  for  the  College,  the  latter  arriv- 
ing  ApHl   27,   the  former   May   24.     The   first   president, 
Kev.  A.  L.  Chapin,  was  called  from   Milwaukee,  Nov.  21st 
1849,   and  inaugurated   July  24,   1850.      Professor  Porter 
came  in  1852,  and  Professor  Blaisdell  in  1859      The  har 
mon.ous  continuity  already  alluded  to  is  due  in  large  meas- 
ure to  the  co-operation,  for  so  long  a  period,  of  these  men  of 
diverse  gifts  but  kindred  spirit. 

The  limits  assigned  me  do  not  permit  the  tracing  in  detail 
of  the  events  of  this  pioneer  epoch,  now  fairly  inaugurated. 
They   were   the   days   of   the   picturesque,   of   the   heroic. 

S  TTM<.f°,7pftheg-Vin?0f  th6Se  '°tSto  the  CoU^eiS  told  in  the  address  of 
L/ouecuon,    lsyi,  with  a  fac-simile  of  the  original  deed. 


Professor  R.  C.  Chapin.  47 

Knowledge  was  Greek,  Latin  and  Mathematics.  Prayers 
began  at  6  a.  m.  The  president's  chair  embraced  such  duties 
as  the  revision  of  freshman  essays  and  the  hearing  of  pre- 
paratory Caesar.  The  Archaean  Debating  Society  and  the 
Missionary  Society,  both  organized  before  the  first  class  had 
gone  very  far,  were  the  chief  voluntary  organizations. 
These  were  the  days  of  beginnings,  and  the  beginnings  were 
sometimes  small,  but  they  were  days  of  high  endeavor,  of 
patient  continuance,  of  faith  and  prayer. 

By  works,  too,  the  friends  of  the  College  gave  proof  of 
their  faith.  At  the  end  of  the  first  ten  years  the  trustees 
were  able  to  report  gifts  amounting  to  $125,000,  of  which 
$29,000  had  been  given  by  citizens  of  Beloit,  and  $31,500  by 
other  donors  at  the  West,  including  the  $10,000  which 
Stephen  Peet  had  solicited  from  home  missionaries  and  their 
parishioners.  From  the  East  had  come  $64,500,  the  largest 
single  gift  being  that  of  Mrs.  Hale  of  Newburyport,  who 
gave  lands  which  eventually  were  sold  for  $35,000. 

The  life  of  this  period  is  reflected  in  its  buildings;  in 
Middle  College,  our  Plymouth  Rock;  in  North  College,  a 
younger  sister  of  Yale's  South  Middle;  in  the  Old  Chapel, 
where,  though  the  interior  might  be  severely  plain,  the 
tossing  tree-tops  outside  seemed  to  waft  the  prayers  a  little 
nearer  heaven.  Plain  living  and  high  thinking  are  written 
upon  every  wall  of  the  trio, —  written  as  well  upon  the  forms 
and  character  of  those  men  whose  presence  was  the  living 
power  within  the  inert  walls. 

The  work  to  which  the  early  graduates  addressed  them- 
selves was  predominantly  that  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
The  need  of  the  world  and  of  the  newly-settled  country, 
threatened  with  the  tendencies  of  immigration  to  barbarism, 
impressed  strongly  upon  these  men  the  demand  for  the 
message  of  the  Gospel. 

Meanwhile  the  nation  has  entered  upon  that  struggle  in 
which  the  Northwest  was  to  turn  the  tide  of  battle  in  favor 


48  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

of  freedom  and  union.  The  College  felt  the  thrill  of  the 
conflict,  Faith  was  now  faith  in  country,  God-given  and 
God-guided;  knowledge  was  the  discerning  of  the  hour; 
training  was  the  teaching  of  the  manual  of  arms.  The 
campus  was  filled  at  the  recreation-hour,  not  with  contend- 
ing ball-players,  but  with  drilling  squads  of  recruits. 

Beloit  sent  her  four  hundred  heroes,  her  forty-six  martyrs, 
to  the  front,  and  the  hero-spirit  pervaded  those  who  stayed 
by  the  stuff  at  home,  so  that  the  daily  routine  was  performed 
with  a  new  energy  and  fidelity.  The  impulse  of  this  spirit 
carried  the  College  along  for  a  dozen  years  from  1860,  until 
the  last  of  her  soldier-sons, —  lieutenants,  captains,  colonels 
of  regiments, —  had  finished  their  academic  preparation  for 
the  works  of  peace.  How  the  soldier-spirit  carried  them  out 
into  the  posts  of  danger  to  u  follow  the  flag  over  the  breast- 
works11 of  the  enemy  of  souls  in  Turkey  and  China  and 
Japan,  T  need  not,  in  this  presence,  attempt  to  relate. 

But  how  the  College  flourished  in  the  years  succeeding  the 
war  may  be  seen  in  the  catalogues  with  their  lengthening 
enrollment  of  students,  and  the  names  of  those  whose  pres- 
ence added  strength  to  the  faculty.  In  1864  Professor 
Blaisdell  was  transferred  from  the  chair  of  rhetoric  to  that 
of  philosophy,  and  the  College,  after  the  faithful  solicitation 
of  President  Chapin  had  brought  in  fifty  thousand  dollars 
from  generous  givers  East  and  West,  to  increase  its  endow- 
ment, declared  its  independence  of  the  Education  Society. 

The  same  impulse  was  felt  in  undergraduate  activities. 
The  Olympian  Base-ball  Club  won  the  state  championship 
in  1867.  A  students'  annual,  called  the  "Palladium"  at 
first,  later  the  "Register,"  was  published  from  1862  to  1871. 
The  daily  prayer-meeting,  which  lived  for  twenty  years,  was 
started  in  1865  among  those  who  had  prayed  together  in  the 
camp.  A  reminiscence  of  the  barracks  was  suggested  by 
the  architecture  of  South  College,  built  in  1868  to  shelter 
the  increasing  numbers, 


Professor  R.  C.  Chapin.  49 

A  fitting  crown  of  this  period  was  the  dedication  in  1869 
of  Memorial  Hall,  erected  by  the  gifts  of  many  donors  in 
response  to  an  appeal  for  one  hundred  dollars  for  each  man 
who  had  enlisted  from  the  College.  The  soldiery  in  uni- 
form, Old  Abe,  Wisconsin's  war-eagle,  the  martial  music, 
the  glowing  oratory  of  Senator  Carpenter,  the  classic  elo- 
quence of  Professor  Emerson,  the  booming  of  the  minute- 
guns,  fired  by  student-veterans  in  honor  of  the  dead, —  all 
bespoke  what  the  College  had  learned  and  suffered,  given 
and  gained,  through  the  war.  As  we  survey  the  record  of 
the  College,  we  do  not  wonder  that  President  Lincoln,  shortly 
before  the  surrender  of  Lee,  testified  to  a  friend  that  it  was 
the  home  missionaries  and  the  college  presidents  who  had 
saved  the  Northwest  to  the  Union  and  thereby  saved  the 
Union  itself.* 

Succeeding  the  war-period  came  the  years  from  1873  to 
the  close  of  President  Chapin's  administration,  in  1886,  years 
characterized  rather  by  the  gradual  strengthening  of  the 
College  than  by  sudden  changes  or  dramatic  incidents, —  the 
period  of  intensive  growth. 

Three  important  tendencies  appear  in  this  epoch.  The 
first  is  the  strengthening  of  the  College  by  its  own  alumni, 
now  a  body  strong  in  numbers  as  well  as  in  character.  They 
entrust  their  own  sons  to  the  care  of  Alma  Mater,  the  first 
of  these  being  graduated  in  1881.  They  contribute  a  fund 
to  endow  an  alumni  professorship,  and  have  begun  to  take 
their  places  on  the  boards  of  trust  and  instruction.  Profes- 
sor Hendrickson,  appointed  in  1871,  was  the  first  of  the 
eleven  graduates  whom  Beloit  has  called  to  full  professor- 
ships; Dr.  J.  Collie,  elected  in  1869,  was  the  first  alumni 
trustee. 

A  second  line  of  development  shows  the  influence  of 
causes  that  were  felt  in  all  the  educational  institutions  of 


*The  spirit  and  the  record  of  the  sons  of  Beloit  in  the  war  are  fittingly  set  forth 
by  Professor  Emerson,  in  Lectures  vn.  and  vm.  of  his  published  "  Lectures  and 
Sermons.1' 


50  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

the  country,  tending  to  the  introduction  of  more  of  natural 
science  and  modern  language  at  the  expense  of  the  classics 
which  had  formed  the  main  stay  of  the  course  of  study. 
The  standard  of  admission  was  raised  from  time  to  time,  to 
correspond  to  the  rise  of  standards   at  the  East.     Here  a 
term  of  Greek,  there  one  of  Latin,  had  already  made  way  for 
geology  or  history,  and  finally  in  1873  a  philosophical  course 
was  laid  out  for  those  who  knew  not  the  sound  of  the  limpid 
Greek.     Though  containing  less  philosophy  than  the  other 
course,  its  name  was  justified  by  its  originator  on  the  ground 
that   it    was    arranged    on    philosophical    principles.      Few 
chose  it  in  those  years,  but  it  furnished  its  full  share  of  men 
of  mark  in  college  and  in  after  life.     The  new  chairs  es- 
tablished during  this  period  were  those  of  geology,  astron- 
omy and  modern  languages,  and  the  scientific  equipment  of 
the  College  was  increased  in  many  ways— especially  by  the 
gift   of   the  Smith   Observatory,   dedicated  in   1883.     This 
building,  the  first  to   bear  a  name  suggested  by  the  donor, 
was  erected  as  a  memorial  to  Mr.  J.  F.  Smith  by  his  sister 
Mrs.  J.  S.  Herrick. 

We  notice  in  the  third  place,  as  in  other  institutions  at 
this  time,  the  diversification  of  undergraduate  activities,  and 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  many  of  the  features  of  col- 
lege life  that  have  since  become  so  prominent  had  their  be- 
ginnings at  Beloit  in  the  thirteen  years  that  we  are  now 
considering.  In  1875  the  College  Monthly,  established  in 
1853,  expands  into  the  semi-monthly  Round  Table,  and  in 
the  same  year  Beloit  wins  second  place  in  the  first  Interstate 
Oratorical  contest.  The  first  fraternity  was  given  recogni- 
tion in  1880.  The  first  Greek  play  to  be  performed,  the 
Antigone,  was  given  in  1885,  in  what  is  now  the  reading- 
room. 

The  first  field-day  was  held  in  1880;  Beloit  entered  the 
Western  College  Base-ball  League  in  1883;  lawn-tennis  ap- 
peared in  1884.     The  Delian  Band  foreshadowed  the  merry 


Professor  U.  C.  Chapin.  51 

tinkle  of  the  Mandolin  Club,  as  did  the  Phi  Beta  Sigma 
Quartette  the  Glee  Club.  The  College  yell  was  born  May  2, 
1884,  on  the  eve  of  a  tie-game  of  base-ball  with  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  and  though  of  much  less  formidable  di- 
mensions than  at  present,  its  seven  syllables  formed  the 
basis  of  the  chorus  of  to-day. 

The  enthusiasm  of  war-times  found  a  parallel  in  the  hearti- 
ness with  which  the  students  took  up  the  building  of  a  gym- 
nasium. The  project  was  launched  by  the  salutatorian  of 
'73,  whose  Latin  speech  was  received  with  unwonted  thunders 
of  applause  as  he  closed  with  the  words,  which  for  more 
than  a  year  had  been  upon  his  lips,  "  gymnasium  aedificandum 
est.1'  The  contributions  were,  like  those  for  Middle  College, 
partly  in  days'  works,  and  the  Wednesday  and  Saturday  half- 
holidays  saw  groups  of  busy  students  wheeling  gravel  or 
laying  shingles. 

The  citizens  of  Beloit  attested  their  loyalty  to  the  College 
by  rallying  once  more  and  raising  a  subscription  for  the 
remodeling  of  Middle  College,  which  in  1880  was  adorned 
with  its  mansard  roof  and  colonnaded  front.  Less  conspicu- 
ous, but  no  less  important,  were  the  additions  made  from 
time  to  time  to  the  endowment  funds,  which,  by  the  close  of 
President  Chapin's  administration,  amounted  to  nearly  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  largest  gift  of  this  period 
was  that  of  $20,000  from  Mrs.  Stone  of  Maiden,  Mass. 

We  cannot  but  ask,  as  we  see  how  new  departments  of 
knowledge  have  taken  their  place  beside  the  older  discipline, 
and  how  the  training  of  the  student  by  his  fellows  takes  on 
a  corresponding  diversity  of  forms,  whether  our  good  ship 
has  drifted  away  from  the  ideals  of  faith  toward  which  her 
framers  set  her  course.  The  College  generation  that  fol- 
lowed the  outgoing  veterans  of  the  war  underwent  a  certain 
reaction  from  the  intensity  of  that  mighty  uplift  of  feeling, 
but  this  was  only  a  temporary  reaction,  and  a  recovery  soon 
ensued.     The  effect  of  social  and  intellectual  movements  in 


Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

the  world  outside  is  reflected  in  the  apportionment  of  the 
graduates  among  the  various  callings.  Of  the  alumni  who 
were  graduated  before  1876,  42  per  cent,  entered  the  minis- 
try; of  those  graduated  since  that  date,  22  per  cent.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  teacher's  profession  shows  an  increase  from 
11  to  24  per  cent.,  and  the  various  forms  of  business  activity 
attracted  15  per  cent,  of  the  earlier  graduates,  23  per  cent, 
or  the  later;  while  law,  (15  per  cent.),  medicine,  (7  per  cent.), 
and  journalism,  (4  per  cent.),  show  almost  the  same  propor- 
tion m  the  two  periods. 

These  figures  mean,  not  that  the  ideals  which  the  College 
has  held  up  have  been  lowered,  but  that  she  has  shown  her 
sons  how  to  to  apply  them  over  the  wider  fields  that  the  in- 
creasing specialization  of  knowledge  and  the  new  applica- 
tion of  science  to  industry  are  opening  up  to  men  of  trained 
minds  and  devoted  hearts.  Surely,  of  all  her  sons,  none 
nave  proved  themselves  more  loyal  to  the  "Beloit  idea,"  to 
the  faith  that  makes  faithful,"  than  those  in  business  and 
tne  institutions  of  learning. 

The  following  table,  prepared  by  Professor  Porter,  is  of 
interest  in  this  connection,  showing,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ap- 
proximated, the  number  of  years  of  service  rendered  by  Be- 
loit  alumni  ,n  the  learned  professions  during  the  last  half- 
century: 

^iniStCTS 'JE 

Physicians '7g4 

Layers ...'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 1440 

Teachers }'**" 

Editors ••'•'•'••.'.'.'.'.'•'.'::::;::::::;;;;:;;  'Z 

Totai ~^i 

In  1886  Dr.  Chapin,  after  thirty-six  years  of  service  in  the 
president's  chair,  resigned,  and  his  mantle  fell  upon  his 
chosen  successor,  Rev.  Edward  Dwight  Eaton.  Under  his 
leadership  the  College  entered  upon  its  fourth  epoch,  that 


Professor  R.  C.  Chapin.  53 

era  of  rapid  expansion  in  which  we  all  rejoice.  The  histor- 
ian of  the  centennial  year  will  be  better  able  than  we  to 
trace  the  continuity  of  development,  but  I  am  sure  that  he 
will  find  that  the  changes  of  this  period  have  been  only  an 
enlarged  expression  of  the  purpose  of  the  founders.  Elec- 
tive courses,  laboratory  methods  in  all  departments,  the 
array  of  modern  buildings,  substantial,  convenient,  beauti- 
ful, the  culture  afforded  by  contact  with  art  and  music, — 
these  are  not  incompatible  with  a  liberal  Christian  educa- 
tion, but  are  the  long-looked-for  aids  in  its  better  attain- 
ment. 

It  was  because  this  expansion  meant  the  magnifying  of 
the  old  ideas  that  every  one  connected  with  the  College, 
trustees,  alumni,  students,  friends,  rallied  so  heartily  in  re- 
sponse to  the  challenge  of  Dr.  D.  K.  Pearsons  in  1889.  As 
Professor  Blaisdell  heard  at  his  gate  the  cheers  that  came 
from  the  old  Chapel  as  the  students  pledged  the  money  that 
many  of  them  would  have  to  earn  themselves,  he  recognized 
the  spirit  of  the  boys  of  the  war-times.  The  zeal  of  others 
was  kindled  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  students,  and  to  the 
$100,000  which  Dr.  Pearsons  had  offered  was  added  more 
than  an  equal  sum,  including  the  gift  from  Mr.  J.  W. 
Scoville  of  $25,000  for  the  comely  Academy  building  that 
bears  his  name,  and  810,000  for  its  endowment  from  the 
citizens  of  Beloit. 

Other  buildings  followed.  Chapin  Hall,  built  and  chris- 
tened by  Dr.  Pearsons,  was  completed  in  1891."  The  beauti- 
ful new  Chapel,  costing  $35,000,  given  by  Mrs.  M.  R.  Doyon 
and  others,  was  dedicated  in  1892,  and  the  tones  of  the  pipe- 
organ  which  Mrs.  H.  Story  placed  within  it  called  into  be- 
ing the  musical  department  of  the  College.  The  vacating 
of  the  old  Chapel  building  left  quarters  there  for  another 
new  department,  art,  which  has  been  enriched  by  numerous 
gifts,  including  the  casts  sent  by  the  Greek  government  to 
the  World's  Fair  in  1893,  presented  by  L.  G.  Fisher,  Jr.,  and 


54  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

an  endowment  of  $10,000  from  Mrs.  Azariah  Eldridge. 

Meanwhile,  the  urgent  need  of  the  College  for  an  enlarged 
equipment  for  the  teaching  of  the  natural  sciences  had 
been  appreciated,  and  Dr.  Pearsons  gave  860,000  for  the 
erection  of  a  Hall  of  Science,  and  Mr.  Wm.  E.  Hale  an 
equal  sum,  $50,000  being  for  endowment.  The  building, 
named  for  the  donor,  was  ready  for  use  in  1893,  and  in  that 
year  Mr.  F.  G.  Logan  equipped  its  museum  with  the  valu- 
able Rust  archaeological  collection.  Hon.  Wait  Talcott  had 
previously  provided  a  fund  for  the  purchase  of  scientific 
books.  The  chairs  of  astronomy  and  botany  were  endowed, 
in  honor,  respectively,  of  Edward  Ely,  Esq.,  and  of  Mrs.' 
Cornelia  Bailey  Williams. 

Along  with  science  and  art,  other  departments  have  not 
been  overlooked  by  the  generous  friends  of  this  later  period. 
The  endowment  of  the  chair  of  oratory  by  Hon.  J.  H.  Knapp 
was  completed.  Mrs.  S.  D.  Warren,  a  life-long  friend  of 
Professor  Blaisdell,  made  a  large  addition  to  the  endowment 
of  his  chair  of  philosophy.  E.  P.  Bacon,  Esq.,  has  provided  a 
scholarship  fund  of  $20,000,  and  a  generous  legacy  for  the 
same  purpose  was  received  from  the  estate  of  Rev.  Joseph 
Emerson,  of  Andover,  Mass.,  while  the  gift  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
C.  B.  Stowell  opened  the  way  for  the  admission  of  women  to 
the  privileges  of  the  institution. 

This  increase  of  Beloit's  material  equipment  was  accom- 
panied by  a  great  enlargement  of  the  opportunities  which 
she  was  able  to  place  within  reach  of  her  students.  The 
course  of  study  was  enriched.  Occasional  options  had  been 
offered  before  1886,  but  in  that  year  the  courses  were  reor- 
ganized with  the  introduction  of  a  large  number  of  electives 
in  the  later  years  of  study.  Instructors  in  art  and  music 
were  in  1893  added  to  the  faculty,  whose  numbers  had  in 
ten  years  increased  from  fourteen  to  twenty-four. 

With  the  completion  of  Pearsons  Hall  in  1893,  it  was 
possible  to  open  a  Science  Course,  incorporating  not  only 


Professor  R.  C.  Chap'rn.  55 

results  but  also  methods  of  investigation,  and  to  carry  yet 
further  Beloit's  standards  of  character  and  scholarship  in 
the  fields  where  they  had  been  so  conspicuously  exhibited 
already  under  less  favorable  auspices. 

To  enjoy  the  enlarged  advantages  now  offered  by  the  Col- 
lege, an  increasing  throng  of  students  sought  her  doors,  as 
her  ranks  were  recruited  from  affiliated  academies  and  ac- 
credited high  schools.  With  the  growth  of  the  Beloit  Acad- 
emy to  the  full  capacity  of  Scoville  Hall,  the  policy  of  de- 
veloping preparatory  schools  in  the  vicinity  into  feeders  of 
the  College  was  begun  with  encouraging  success,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  provision  was  made  for  recognizing  the  fact 
that  the  best  High  Schools  of  the  region  now  do  full  pre- 
paratory work.  In  1895  women  were  admitted  to  the  Col- 
lege classes  and  Stowell  Cottage  was  opened  for  their  accom- 
modation. When  President  Eaton's  administration  began 
there  were  58  students  in  the  College  proper;  in  1889  there 
were  97;  in  1897,  196. 

The  diversification  of  student  life,  already  begun,  is  car- 
ried further  with  the  increase  of  attendance.  Class-day  be- 
comes an  established  institution  from  1886.  The  Glee  Club 
makes  its  first  concert  tour  in  1889.  A  new  series  of  oratori- 
cal victories  encourages  the  wearers  of  the  gold.  The  Greek 
play  attains  the  dignity  of  an  annual  public  performance. 
A  College  Annual  appears  again  in  1889,  after  the  battles 
over  the  Register  have  been  forgotten.  The  fraternity 
houses  add  their  charms  to  the  social  life  of  the  students. 
A  regular  instructor  in  athletics  is  added  to  the  faculty  in 
1894  by  the  efforts  of  the  students,  and  a  place  on  the  team 
now  means,  not  a  little  desultory  practice,  but  persistent 
hard  work.  Yet  amid  all  these  distractions,  the  worth  of 
honest  manhood  never  found  readier  recognition,  the  pro- 
portion of  students  dependent  on  their  own  exertions  was 
never  greater. 

Numbers  have  increased,  courses  have  been    multiplied, 


56  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  College. 

facilities  have  been  amplified.  Has  the  growth  in  knowl- 
edge been  at  the  cost  of  faith?  Time  alone  can  tell.  But 
judging  from  such  indications  as  the  interest  in  the  Sunday 
vespers,  the  hush  of  reverent  affection  which  greets  the  men- 
tion of  Professor  Blaisdell's  name,  or  from  the  cordial  unani- 
mity of  conviction  among  the  members  of  the  faculty,  and 
the  spirit  in  which  recent  graduates  are  finding  and  doing 
their  work  in  the  world,  we  rejoice  to  believe  that  the  Col- 
lege is  not  to  erase  but  to  magnify  the  larger  half  of  her 
motto. 

The  experiences  of  each  succeeding  epoch  have  demon- 
strated the  value  of  the  ideals  of  the  foundeis,  the  strength 
of  the  foundations  that  they  laid.  Each  period  has  found 
the  College  responsive  to  the  changing  demands  made  upon 
her  by  the  advancement  of  knowledge  and  by  the  new  forms 
of  duty  to  which,  with  social  development  and  change,  faith 
has  prompted.  "The  past  at  least  is  secure."  The  future  is 
with  God.  But  if  the  College  shall  be  true  to  God's  plan 
for  her  as  revealed  in  her  history,  if  she  shall  still  teach 
men  to  read  God's  truth,  to  read  man's  need,  and  to  live  the 
truth  into  the  life  of  the  world,  who  dare  doubt  that  the 
future  too  is  secure  with  God  and  those  whom  He  shall  call 
to  carry  on  her  work? 

The  prophetic  words  with  which  Dr.  Chapin  closed  his 
account  of  the  "Origin  and  Early  Progress  of  the  College," 
delivered  fifty  years  ago  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of 
Middle  College,  hold  good  for  us  to-day:  "With  faith  in- 
spired by  past  experience,  in  connection  with  the  firm  prom- 
ises of  God,  we  address  ourselves  to  the  difficulties  before  us. 
with  confident  hope  that  He  who  has  thus  led  us  by  ways 
that  we  knew  not,  will  perfect  the  work  that  He  has  per- 
mitted us  to  begin  and  make  it  redound  to  His  glory  and  the 
good  of  men." 


POEM. 


SAMUEL    T.    KIDDER,  CLASS    OF    1873. 
MENASHA. 


In  Memory  of  Professor  James  J.  Blaisdell. 

O  Mother,  kind,  who  tenderly  hast  borne 

Upon  thy  gentle  heart,  these  two  score  years 

And  ten,  and  nurtured  into  man's  estate 

Thy  generations  who  have  come  and  passed, 

Who  toiling  walk  earth's  dusty  roads  afar 

With  never  waning  love  and  faith  for  thee;— 

Mother,  who  bear'st  to-day  with  queenly  grace 

Thy  green  half-century's  crown  of  olive-leaf, 

Entwined  by  loyal  sons,  yet  wear'st  no  less 

The  bloom  and  smile  of  fresh,  unwrinkled  youth;— 

Like  children  tired  of  play,  breathless  and  flushed, 

We  wander  home,  back  from  life's  reeking  mists 

And  blinding  whirl,  all  gratefully  content 

To  soothe  ourselves,  spending  one  little  hour 

In  thy  embrace. 

O  College  home,  beloved, 
Fair  stand  thy  walls  and  pinnacles  to-day, 
From  small  beginnings  rising  into  power 
And  comeliness,  within  God's  sheltering  hand. 
In  thee  the  whole  round  world  is  blest;  and  still 
Blessed  the  labors  wrought  within  thy  doors. 
Deep  underneath  thy  visible  structures,  lie 
Foundations  sure  and  strong,  whereon  are  graven 
Rare  histories  of  courage,  prayer  and  hope 
In  earlier  days.    Ask  you  what  stones  are  these? 
Not  quarried  granite,  massive  marble  cubes, 


58  In  Memory  of  Professor  James  J.  Blaisdell. 

Not  jasper,  chrysoprase,  nor  emerald 

Nor  amethyst;  but  costlier  far  than  all — 

Heroic  souls,  laid  down  through  strenuous  years 

Of  sacrifice  and  labor,  love  bestowed, 

For  the  great  Kingdom's  service.     Lives  sublime, 

Self-builded  into  an  immortal  fabric, 

Based  on  the  Rock  of  Ages; — "Living  Stones," 

Impregnable  to  all  attacks  of  time. 

Such  lives,  to-day,  we  reverence  in  our  song. 

Some  linger  yet,  whose  whitening  heads,  to  us, 
Wear  halos — late  returning  to  the  Heavens; 
But  whose  dear  faces  shine,  as  touched  afar 
Already  with  the  splendors  of  a  dawn 
Celestial. 

Some  have  passed  into  the  lands 
Serene  and  vernal,  where  the  sons  of  God 
See  as  He  sees  and  know  as  they  are  known; 
Whose  works  do  follow  them. 

To  one  of  these, 
With  throbs  of  grief  subdued  by  thankfulness, 
This  day  of  days  we  join  in  tender  tribute. 


He  stood  here,  one  brief  year  ago, 

A  form  with  kingly  eye  and  mien; 
A  prince  of  men,  he  walked  with  God 
Through  pregnant  years,  then  strangely  trod 
A  pathway  dark  with  pain  and  awe, 
Into  the  realm  unseen. 

Here,  where  vast  streams  of  empire  meet, 
He  came,  in  manhood's  sturdy  prime, 

And  threw  his  wealth  of  mind  and  heart 

Into  high  contest  to  impart 

To  young  lives,  crude  and  incomplete, 
Enthusiasms  sublime. 

The  heights  of  faith,  the  breadths  of  law, 
Fair  Nature's  page  devoutly  read, 

Had  schooled  him  for  his  high  career; 

Till,  with  the  vision  of  the  seer, 

The  child's  simplicity,  he  saw 
How  noblest  souls  are  bred. 


Samuel  T.  Kidder,  59 

Deep  on  his  mighty  heart,  he  bore 

This  College,  and  its  task  divine 
Of  forging  character.     His  love 
Shrank  from  no  sacrifice,  but  strove 
With  Heavenly  flame  to  shape  rough  ore 

Into  a  temper  fine. 

He  read  men's  souls  with  insight  clear 

And  found  their  best.     His  eye  of  flame, 
That  melted  ever  to  a  smile, 
The  uncouth  and  timid  could  beguile 
To  dare  brave  deeds  and  persevere, 

The  headstrong  gently  tame. 

Sure  was  his  friendship,  warm  his  hand, 

The  awkward,  homesick  lad  to  cheer. 
His  measure  of  the  man  was  true; 
His  kindly  counsels  stirred  anew 
In  every  soul  that  touched  him,  grand 

Ideals  and  plans  sincere. 

Scant  use  he  found  for  text-book  lines, 

Learned  fads,  scholastic  subtleties — 
Mere  surface  culture; — from  within 
He  wrought,  with  master  touch,  to  win 
Sense,  mind  and  will  to  high  designs, 

Unmarred  by  sophistries. 

The  best  he  gave  us  was  himself. 

His  great  soul  our  ambitions  drew 
Up  manhood's  loftier  grades  and  modes, 
Toward  life's  best  aims, — at  antipodes 
From  passion,  pride  and  lust  for  pelf, 

The  endless  life  in  view. 

Full  learned  in  many  a  tongue  was  he; 

Arts,  sciences,  philosophies, 
Wide  realms  of  letters,  history's  lore, 
Poesy,  politics,  all  bore 
Him  wealth;  yet  blent  in  one  great  plea 

For  Christlike  sympathies. 

Rich  meanings  to  all  life  he  gave; 
All  souls  he  would  to  fitness  bring, 
"  Trained  by  experiences  here, 


60  in  Memory  of  Professor  James  J.  Blaisdell 

For  any  work  in  any  sphere." 
A  man,  indeed,  "who  sought  to  have 
The  Christ  in  everything." 

For,  larger  than  his  calling  here, 

His  heart  went  out  to  all  men's  need;  — 
The  poor,  the  untaught,  the  manacled, 
The  orphaned  waif,  God's  toilers  held' 
Bv  tyrannies.— His  voice  rang  clear, 
Mercy  and  truth  to  plead, 

No  cause  of  justice  found  him  dumb; 
Nor  civic  wrong  nor  social  sin. 
The  workman  and  the  little  child 
Knew  him  their  friend  and,  grateful,  smiled. 
Statesman  and  jurist  loved  to  come 
His  skilled  advice  to  win. 

Deep  in  his  soul  God's  Kingdom  dwelt. 

He  yearned  to  broaden  its  domain, 
In  fields  unblest,  on  pagan  strands. 
More  reapers  for  white  harvest-lands 
He  longed  to  send  and,  praying,  dealt 

To  share  their  loss  or  gain. 

I  see  him  in  his  class-room  still, 

With  face  now  smiling,  now  severe; 
No  listless  eye  nor  reckless  mood 
He  suffered;  well  he  understood 
To  rouse  dull  mind,  to  nerve  weak  will 

And  shape  the  concept  clear. 
I  see  him  in  his  study  chair, 

Wrapped  in  an  atmosphere  serene; 
His  favorite  books  — of  themes  world-wide, 
Pictures  and  keepsakes  by  his  side; 
Or  roaming  with  a  thoughtful  air 
Through  forest  archways  green. 
I  see  him  in  the  chapel  hall, 

His  voice  of  rich-toned  pathos  hear 
Interpreting  God's  word  anew, 
Then,  lifted  in  such  prayer  as  threw 
A  spell  of  awe  around  us  all, 
Till  Heaven's  gate  seemed  near. 


Samuel  T.  Kidder.  01 


Aud  still  our  hearts  delight  to  stroll 
O'er  happy  trails  of  bygone  days; 
Again,  in  sweet  companionship, 
We  clasp  his  hand;  our  spirits  dip 
Into  the  deep  springs  of  his  soul, 
Along  life's  thirsty  ways. 


Can  he  be  dead,  this  royal  one; 

And  has  he  gone  beyond  our  ken? 

His  thrilling  voice,  his  potent  pen, 
Must  they  be  missed  till  time  is  done? 

So  strong,  so  true,  so  kind,  so  great,— 
"God's  will"  the  token  on  his  shield- 
He,  martyred,  fell,  yet  won  the  field 

Whose  victory  only  seemed  defeat. 

The  oaken  wreath  upon  his  door, 
The  grave  with  autumn  splendors  spread, 
The  bowed  processions  with  their  dead, 

The  sweet  hymns  chanted  o'er  and  o'er, 

The  eulogies,  so  poor  at  best;  — 
All  these  are  but  the  outward  signs 
Of  grief  profound,  of  love's  deep  lines 

Graven  in  hearts  that  wish  him  rest. 

Rest  —  after  toils  without  surcease, 
Burdens  he  would  to  none  confess; 
Out  of  an  "  infinite  distress." 

Swift  passage  to  God's  endless  peace. 

What  load  of  hearts  on  him  was  laid; 

What  serious  problems  of  the  state; 

The  needs  of  men,  the  Kingdom's  weight! 
He  stood  like  Atlas,  undismayed  ; 

Till,  weary,  overborne  with  pain, 

Strange  shadows  crushed  him  to  the  ground ; 

Sharp  lightenings,  from  a  gloom  profound, 
Thrust  to  his  heart  and  left  him  slain. 

And  broken  is  the  golden  bowl, 
Loosed  is  the  silver  cord.    Not  here 


62 


In  Memory  of  Professor  James  J.  Blaisdell 

His  face  will  smile,  his  voice  will  cheer; 
We  miss  the  music  of  his  soul. 

The  moonbeams  flood  the  amber  skies, 
The  still  stars  shine,  the  days  speed  on; 
We  toil,  bereft,  since  he  hath  gone 

Where  kindlier  spheres  his  service  prize. 

He  is  not  dead.    His  life  throbs  on 
In  souls  uncounted,  whom  he  blessed 
With  sight  and  power,  in  rich  behest, 

Whose  potency  is  scarce  begun. 

In  those  far  fields  of  dazzling  sheen 
Where  he  for  aye  doth  walk  in  light 
With  kindred  spirits,  robed  in  white, 

We'll  learn,  perchance,  what  this  can  mean. 


O,  mother-queen,  thy  day  hath  well  begun! 

Rich  legacies  from  the  dear  past  are  thine; 

God  send  thee  myriads  more  of  gifts  benign, 

Advancing  stately  toward  thy  zenith  sun. 
Thine  be,  at  length,  the  Master's  sweet  "well-done." 

Let  nothing  swerve  thee  from  thy  great  design, 

Young  lives  to  lead,  enlighten  and  refine. 

God  speed,  thy  golden  century's  course  to  run! 
A  noble  host  of  witnesses  on  high, 

With  legions  of  thy  loyal  children  nigh, 

Look  on  to  cheer  thee  and  to  reenforce. 
May  grace  be  thine  and  all  divine  resource  — 

Fruitions  that  surpass  all  prophecy; 

More  lustrous  crowns  thy  head  to  glorify. 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  COLLEGE 
IN  BUSINESS  LIFE. 


P.  F.  PETTIBONE,  M.  A.,  CLASS  OF  1862. 


This  is  a  great  day  for  Queen  Beloit  and  Queen  Victoria. 
A  great  day  for  the  sons  of  old  England,  bidden  everywhere 
to  jubilee;  a  great  day  for  those  who,  because  sons  of  old 
England  and  of  New  England  and  new  New  England,  are 
become  henceforth,  thank  God,  sons  of  America;  a  great 
day  (shall  we  even  say  a  greater  day?)  for  us,  of  these  the 
select  and  fortunate,  who — best  of  all  our  genealogical  good 
fortune — can  greet  as  our  Cherishing  Mother  that  fair 
daughter  of  the  New  England  whom  to-day  we  hail  as 
queen. 

To  our  quiet  college  home,  as  well  as  to  the  ancient  city 
across  the  sea,  uthe  ends  of  the  world  are  come.'1  It  is  not 
our  fault  that  two  queens  thus  distract  a  world's  attention 
and  homage.  Every  queen  has  some  rights  that  other 
queens  are  bound  to  respect,  notably  rights  of  primogeniture 
and  precedence.  Victoria  should  have  remembered  that, 
fifty  years  before  she  was  crowned,  Queen  Beloit  was  or- 
dained by  the  "  'Ordainance'  of  1787."  It  should  have  been 
remembered,  also,  that  in  that  very  June  of  1837,  when  Vic- 
toria was  being  crowned,  wise  men  from  the  East,  mindful 
of  the  prophetic  ordainment,  were  providing  a  worthy  home 
for  our  queen  by  gaining  possession  of  this  garden,  which, 
as  our  beloved  Emerson  says,  "  the  Lord  planted  westward 
in  Wisconsin  at  the  same  time  that  He  planted  a  garden 
eastward  in  Eden,"  that  so  the  man  of  Eden,  when  suffi- 


64 


The  Life  of  the  College  in  Business  Life. 


c.ently  prepared,  might  come  to  Beloit  College.  Victoria 
should  have  remembered,  also,  that  at  the  very  time  when 
she  was  celebrating  her  tin  anniversary  Queen  Beloit  was 
teep»Hontercr.wn  and  setting  up  her  little  court, 
and  that  therefore  Beloifs  golden  jubilee  must  interfere 
with  Victoria's  diamond  jubilee. 

At  this  very  hour  of  England's  day,  from  the  dome  of  St. 
faul  s  the  calm  centuries  look  down  upon  a  royal  pageant 
-the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them,  in 
stately  procession,  winding  past  towards  London  Bridge  - 
wh.Ie  land  after  land  joins  mighty  England's  mighty  chorus, 
God  Save  he  Queen."  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  imposing 
and  spectacular  demonstration  of  love  and  loyalty  and  might 
which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

In  sharp  contrast  of  external  show,  but  with  no  prophetic 
undertone  of  dissent,  with  a  sincerity  that  knows  no  doubt, 
a  confidence  that  knows  no  misgiving,  a  loyalty  absolute 
and  covetous  of  service,  with  hearts  full  of  dear  memories, 
full  of  pr.de  and  hope,  full  of  a  love  that  is  full  of  gladness 
lull  of  a  gladness  that  is  yet  full  of  tears,  the  sons  of  Beloit 
return  from  many  quests  in  many  lands  to  this  dear  place, 
that  once  again   upon   their  heads  may  rest  the  touch  of 
blessing,  and  that  in  simple  speech  and  simple  form,  with 
holy  prayer  and  holy  hymn,  and   holy  thought,  they  may 
bless  this  golden  day  that  crowns  in  jubilee  a  half  century 
othdehtyto  coronation   vows.     "This  golden  day  of  fifty 
years,    did  I  say  ?     Rather  should  I  say  "these  fiftv  years  of 
golden   days;     golden,   every   one,    in   the   harvest   of  its 
hours,  golden  in  its  opportunities,  experiences  and  achieve- 
ments, golden  in  its   untarnished  and   untarnishable  honor 
and  truth,  golden  in  its  unswerving  standard  of  value,  golden 
in  the  small  compass  of  its  munificent  wealth,  golden  in  its 
unngs  to  untiring  devotion  and  heroic  patience,  golden  in 
the  quality  of  its  life  and  thought-of  its  teachings  and  in- 
spirations. "  " 


P.  F.  Pettibone.  65 

A  few  of  those  golden  years  fell  into  the  lives  of  each  of 
us,  and  then,  so  long  ago,  when  all  the  world  looked  golden, 
with  alma  mater's  benediction  upon  us  and  to  follow  us,  we 
went  forth  to  seek  place  and  work.  Returning  now,  with 
these  rejoicings,  each  is  telling  what  those  years  have  meant 
to  him  in  the  world  which  he  has  found. 

It  is  entirely  consistent  with  the  attitude  and  the  educa- 
tional theories  of  Beloit,  that  on  an  occasion  which  thus  not 
only  celebrates  an  epoch,  but  exemplifies  a  history,  there  is 
honorable  recognition   of  the  world  of  business  affairs,  as 
well  as  of  the  world  of   the   professions   and   of  advanced 
scholarship.     This  College,  from  its  foundation,  has  stood 
for  thorough  scholarship.     It  has  never  lowered  its  standards 
to  ease  or  shorten  the  way  to  a  degree.     It  has  advanced, 
never  receded.     It  has  broadened  and  strengthened  its  course 
in  the  departments  which  bear  most  directly  upon  the  great 
social  and  political  problems;  it  has  enlarged  the  opportun- 
ities for  scientific  investigation,  but  it  has  never  modified  its 
curriculum  of  solid,  legitimate  college  work  to  meet  a  whim- 
sical demand  for  so-called  practical  education.     From  what 
wild  educational  excesses  and  extravagances  its  poverty  may 
have  saved   it,  I  do  not  say.     I  would  be  willing,  however, 
to  risk  its  discretion,  even  with  a  half  million  additional  en- 
dowment.    The  College  seems,  somehow,  to  believe  that  the 
sort  of  education  which  it  stands  for,  and  always  has  stood 
for,  is  practical  education.     President  Eaton  in  his  inaugu- 
ral address  ten  years  ago  says,  "The  education  which  Beloit 
College  gives  must  be,  as  heretofore,  a  practical  education; 
that  is,  it  must  be  fitted  to  the  needs  of  the  present  genera- 
tion; it    must   fit   its   students  to  serve  the   present  age." 
"  Present  need/1     "'  Present  service.'1     There  is  surely  noth- 
ing of  the  medieval,  the  utopian  or  the  dilettante  about  this 
declaration.     Blaisdell,  the  beloved  and  lamented,  only  ex- 
pands the  horizons  of  the  thought  when  he  says,  "  I  desire 
to  be  so  trained  by  the  experiences  of  this  life  as  to  be  fitted 


66 


The  Life  of  the  College  in  Business  Life. 


for  anyserT]ce  ,n  any  world."  Herein  are  expressed  the 
Beloit  theory,  the  Beloit  aspiration,  the  Beloit  endeavor. 
And  so  when  a  subject  is  suggested  which,  on  this  day  of 
jubdee  those  who  come  from  the  life  of  business  may  make 
the  vehicle  of  their  congratulations  and  thanksgivings,  there 
is  a  significance  in  the  very  statement  of  the  theme.  I  know 
not  how  it  could  have  been  more  accurately  and  suggestively 
formu  a  e  than  in  the  very  words  in  which  it  /given  me 
—  Ihe  Life  of  the  College  in  Business  Life." 

The  theme  assumes  and  recognizes  and  emphasizes  the 
existence  of  a  distinctive  life  of  the  college;  a  soul,  which 
pervades  and  informs  all  the  purpose  and  work  of  the  col- 
lege and  is  more  than  the  things  in  which  it  deals,  even  as 
the  life  is  more  than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment." 
I  assumes  that  the  college  fulfills  her  destinv  and  perpetu- 
ates her  hfe  according  as,  and  only  as,  she  'transfuses  this 
life  into  the  bosoms  of  her  sons,  and  nourishes  it  there  to 
such  growth  as  may  promise  survival  and  development 

It  implies  that  the  college  which  does  not  implant  life  as 
well  as  impart  knowledge,  to  the  extent  in  which  therein  it 
tails -fails  lamentably,  however  large  the  attendance,  how- 
ever rich   the  endowments,  however  learned  the   faculty 
however  ample  the  facilities. 

It  suggests  that  the  student  may  gain  many  things  in  his 
college  and  yet  fail  to  absorb  from  or  through   the  college 

vaLT  SM*  rhiCh   al°De   CaD   ^Ve   highest   practical 
value  to  all  the  rest. 

It  implies  further  that  a  college,  poor  in  everv  endowment 
save  its  rich  mental,  moral  and  spiritual  life,  may  yet  send 
out  the  lines  of  its  influence  through  all  the  earth  Dart- 
mouth, eighty  years  ago,  was  a  small  college,  but  the  great 
Webster  was  nurtured  there,  and  perhaps  his  eloquence  was 
never  more  effective  than  when  he  moved  the  great  Chief 
Justice  to  tears,  saying  with  choking  voice,  "  It  is  a  small 
college,  but,  sir,  there  are  those  who  love  it." 


P.  F.  Pettibone.  67 

The  question,  then,  concerns,  not  so  much  what  a  college 
imparts  as  what  it  implants;  not  so  much  the  armor  and  the 
arms  which  she  may  gird  upon  her  son,  as  the  life  behind 
helmet  and  corselet  and  good  right  arm,  which  she  may  in- 
spire. 

And  so,  as  from  time  to  time  the  sons  come  home 
from  their  varied  quests,  our  alma  mater  has  the  right 
to  ask,  as  with  deep  concern  she  does  ask,  uHow  fares 
my  life  in  yours?"  Perhaps  she  asks  this  question  with 
deepest  solicitude  of  us  who  come  from  business  pursuits, 
because  many  still  challenge  the  economy  of  a  college  train- 
ing in  business.  The  sneer  at  the  " scholar  in  business'1  is, 
however,  disappearing,  as  is  that  other  sneer  at  the  a  scholar 
in  politics. "  The  changing  conditions  of  business,  the  new 
and  complex  problems,  commercial,  political,  social,  econ- 
omic, which  confront  business  men  as  individuals  and  asso- 
ciations, on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  a  clearer  con- 
ception of  what  a  college  education  means  —  of  the  little  it 
means  in  comparison  with  the  vast  unexplored  —  are  causing 
men  to  recast  their  opinions.  A  recent  issue  of  the  Chicago 
Tribune  had  on  one  page  an  able  editorial  endorsing  colleges 
and  their  influence  in  practical  affairs,  and  on  another  page 
a  paper,  recently  read  at  a  convention  of  bankers,  advocat- 
ing the  establishment  of  post-graduate  schools  to  fit  men 
more  thoroughly  for  certain  special  lines  of  business  admin- 
istration. 

But  what  is  this  life  which  the  true  college  has  and  from 
which  it  gives?  Cold  analysis  will  not  discover  it.  No  re- 
finement of  definition  can  adequately  reveal  it.  You  who 
look  back  upon  these  years  know  what  it  is  better  than  I 
can  tell  you  or  you  can  tell  me.  This  we  know  that  it  is  a 
real  life  and  a  manly,  wholesome  life.  Perhaps  if  we  say 
brain-life,  heart-life,  soul-life,  giving  to  each  its  broadest 
and  fullest  significance,  with  the  emphasis  always  on  life, 
and  think  of  these,  not  as  struggling  to  keep  alive,  but  as 


68  The  Life  of  the  College  in  Business  Life. 

in  large  and  strong  development,  and  in  just  the  right  com- 
bination, we  are  come  as  close  as  we  may  to  what  we  mean 
by  the  life  of  the  college,  on  the  college  side.     Consider,  for 
instance,  intellectual  life.     My  thought  is  that  a  man  may 
know  a  good  deal  and  still  be  intellectually  dull.     He  may 
do  his  college  work  in   a  perfunctory  way;  certain   mental 
faculties   may  be   developed  and  still   be   inert.     The  great 
teacher  is  the   one  who   awakens  as  well  as  instructs;  who 
stirs  the  mind  to  eager  life,  so  that  by  what  it  feeds  on  and 
does  it  grows  not  only  large  but  strong,  and  not  only  strong 
but   active.     I  do   not    mean    simply  a  mental  alertness,  a 
smartness  that  counts   for  something  in   business  life.     I 
mean  a  mind  alive,  not  to  petty  things,  but  to  great  things. 
A  mind  that  hungers  and  thirsts:  a  mind   that  grasps  and 
analyzes  and  constructs  and  formulates.     But  an  intellectual 
life,  however  strong  and  eager,  must  have  also  the  guidance 
of  high  moral  principles,  quick   moral   perceptions,  the  in- 
centive of  high  sentiments  and  ideals.     These  can  not  be 
imparted  by  maxim.     They   must  be  implanted   in  the  life 
and  grow  with  the  life.     And  then  there  is  the  culture  of 
the  divinely   implanted   spiritual  life  —  the  spirit  which  is 
life.     I  pity  the  young  man  who  can  dwell  for  four  beauti- 
ful years  in  an  atmosphere  so  surcharged  with  inspirations 
and  not  feel  within  him  the  stirrings  of  a  nobler  life. 

A  college  education,  therefore,  implies  uot  only  mental 
and  moral  furnishment  and  development,  but  these'so  ener- 
gized and  sensitized  by  the  life  of  the  college  as  to  promise 
not  only  survival  but  further  development  and  valuable  re- 
sult. 

My  theme  thus  denned  greatly  simplifies  the  old  question 
of  the  influence,  valuable  or  otherwise,  of  a  college  educa- 
tion upon  a  business  career.  If  you  ask,  does  a  college 
course  help  a  man  in  business?  I  answer,  that  depends  on 
the  college  and  on  the  man.  If  the  man  goes  to  college 
because  it  has  become  the  proper  thing  to  do,  and  is  satisfied 


P.  F.  Pettibone.  69 

to  emerge  with  a  Greek  letter  pin,  a  banjo  and  (possibly)  a 
sheepskin;  or,  if  he  comes  out  clogged  and  crammed  with  a 
lot  of  lifeless  erudition;  if,  like  the  man  from  the  desert,  he 
gets  a  brief  revelation  of  himself  in  the  mirror -of  truth,  and 
then  straightway  forgetteth  what  manner  of  man  he  is, 
then  I  think  it  makes  small  difference  either  way.  But  if 
you  ask,  does  the  life  of  the  college  have  worthy  place  and 
abundant  scope  in  the  life  of  a  business  man?  Then  I  an- 
swer unhesitatingly,  yes.  Life  is  just  what  business  must 
have.  We  say  nowadays,  "  There  is  no  life  in  business.'1 
Why?  Because  there  has  not  been  enough  brain-life  and 
heart-life  and  spirit-life  put  into  it;  because  false  theories 
have  led  to  wrong  policies  and  threaten  worse;  because  men 
have  measured  success  only  in  money,  and  have  sometimes 
forgotten  to  be  just. 

"What!"  says  the  man  who  still  supposes  that  colleges 
exist  chiefly  for  candidates  for  the  ministry,  " devote  four 
years  of  these  fleeting  and  unworthy  lives  to  Greek  and 
Latin  and  philosophy,  and  then  be  only  a  business  man." 
"  Only  a  business  man!  "  I  forgive  the  implication.  Doubt- 
less there  are  other  pursuits  nobler  than  to  buy  and  sell  and 
get  gain,  but  business  is,  and  must  be,  the  life  of  the 
world,  and  these  higher  lives  are  nobler,  if  nobler,  only  be- 
cause their  aim  is  to  make  the  business  life  nobler  and 
higher.  They  work  from  the  outside.  Why  not  help  from 
the  inside? 

"What!'1  says  the  arrogant  and  ignorant  "  self-made " 
man  (a  few  of  him  still  survive)  "  four  years  in  college 
when  the  boy  ought  to  be  at  work,  earning  money  and  mak- 
ing a  man  of  himself,  same  as  I  did."  Ah!  my  friend,  it  is 
because  money  does  not  make  manhood,  because  business 
success  is  not  measured  wholly  by  bank  accounts,  because  I 
want  my  boy  to  be  not  only  a  good  business  man,  but  some- 
thing more,  to  be  an  intelligent,  broad-minded,  high-minded, 
good-hearted,  cultured  Christian  gentleman  that  I  shall  send 
him  to  Beloit. 


70  The  Life  of  the  College  in  Business  Life. 

If  however  you   ask,  "  Is  a  college  education  essential  to 
highest  and  truest  success  in  business  or  happiness  in  life?" 
We  as  promptly  answer,  "No."     And  while,  as  befits  the 
occasion  and  the  theme,  we  to-day  exalt  the  college  and  con- 
gratulate the  college  man,  by  contrast  we  salute  with  deepest 
reverence  the  splendid  men,  so  many  in  our  business  life,  who, 
without  the  early  impulse  of  a  college  course,  by  assiduous 
study  in  the  "  university  of  the  world,1'  by  long  hours  in 
their  libraries  after  long  days  of  toil,  by  every  careful  cul- 
ture and  every  developing  use,  have  trained  their  powers  far 
beyond  the  farthest  point  that  the  close  of  a  college  course 
can  reach,  and  are  entitled  to  the  highest  college  honors. 
In  presence  of  such  men  (and   this  platform  is  honored  by 
some  of  them)  the  alumnus,  who  long  ago  ceased  distinctive 
and  persistent  mental  work,  may  well  keep  silence.     These 
are  the  sort  of  " self-made  men"  whom  the  world  delights 
to    honor.     A  man   does   not   advance   through    successive 
stages  of  highest  responsibility  and  usefulness  as  a  banker, 
and  of  recognition  as  a  citizen  in  many  ways  of  public  serv- 
ice, from  bank  messenger  at  fourteen  years  of  age  to  be  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  in  whose  wisdom  a  nation  puts  its 
trust,  to  whose  utterances  the  whole  business  world  listens 
with  hope,  except  that  to  him  his  library  has  been  more  than 
a  whole  college  course  to  most   men.     In  honoring  such  a 
man  a  college  honors  itself  and  its  country,  and  such  a  name 
writ   large    upon    the   records    of    Beloit,   is    most   fitting 
acknowledgment  of  a  real  "  Life  of  the  College  in  Business 
Life." 


GREETINGS  EROM  PROFESSIONAL  LIFE. 


WALTER    S.    HAVEN,    M.    1).,    CLASS    OF    1887, 
Racine. 


In  an  age  of  intense  activity  and  of  diverse  pursuits,  when 
often  the  clash  of  contending  interests  is  heard,  it  is  well  to 
pause  a  moment  in  the  strife  till  the  smoke  of  battle  lifts 
away,  that  a  clear  and  larger  vision  may  be  had.  And  on 
this  glorious  and  sacred  day  which  marks  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  our  alma  mater,  we  rejoice  to  bring  our  greetings 
fresh  from  the  field  of  conflict  and  to  declare  once  more  our 
allegiance  and  our  loyalty.  For  though  time  and  space 
may  have  taken  from  you  the  sons  who  once  were  under 
your  instruction,  yet  they  belong  to  you  still  and  must  ever 
live  beneath  your  sway.  It  is  true,  they  may  long  since  have 
said  farewell,  and  left  the  places  which  they  used  to  fill  to 
be  filled  by  others,  and  the  haunts  which  they  used  to  fre- 
quent to  be  visited  by  others,  and  may  have  handed  down  to 
the  keeping  of  their  successors  the  sacred  traditions  of  col- 
lege life,  yet  they  cannot  escape  the  influence  of  their  col- 
lege training,  or  outlive  its  perennial  blessings.  Wherever 
and  whenever  the  human  mind  is  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of 
truth,  whether  that  devotion  be  in  professional  or  other 
lines,  there  and  then  can  the  college  ever  find  her  most 
ardent  advocates  to  champion  the  cause  of  education. 

For  there  can  be  no  real  isolation  between  any  of  the  call- 
ings of  life.  Each  exists  for  all,  and  partakes  in  its  move- 
ment of  the  harmony  of  all.  The  specialist  must  still  ever 
be  the  priest  of  universal  truth.     And  since  truth  is  an  or- 


72  Greetings  from  Professional  Life. 

ganic  whole,  complete  knowledge  of  any  part  sweeps  into 
its  scope  a  knowledge  of  the  whole,  and  demands  of  the  stu- 
dent of  every  branch,  his  allegiance  to  every  other.  So  the 
great  scholar  and  the  broad-minded  man  is  he  who  " leads  a 
universal  life  with  the  truth  he  sees,"  and  brings  his  special 
work  into  harmony  with  the  world  of  truth  outside.  In  this 
broad  view,  all  professions  and  trades  and  walks  in  life,  nd 
longer  isolated  by  the  cold  and  selfish  barriers  of  independ- 
ence, are  brought  into  a  wondrous  unity,  when  each  can  feel 
the  thrill  of  the  power  it  derives  from  all. 

It  is  folly  therefore  to  imagine,  that  a  college  course  might 
without  loss  be  dispensed  with  in  taking  up  the  pursuit  of 
professional  life.  With  a  noble  and  ambitious  nature,  yearn- 
ing to  realize  all  the  possibilities  of  being,  there  can  be  no 
divorce  between  general  and  special  training.  True  eminence 
in  any  field  of  labor  will  tax  to  the  uttermost  the  energies 
of  even  trained  minds,  and  he  will  strive  in  vain,  who  seeks 
to  supply  the  great  wants  of  his  being  through  the  narrow 
avenues  of  a  one-sided  nature. 

We  came  not  here  to-day  to  construct  with  argument  and 
logic  a  defense  of  college  training.  Far  be  it  from  us  to  de- 
fend the  right  of  existence  of  our  alma  mater!  There  needs 
no  defense:  nor  do  we  seek  to  justify  again  to  ourselves  and 
before  the  world  the  toil,  and  struggle  and  self-sacrifice  of 
fifty  years.  We  have  but  to  point  to  the  glorious  record 
and  every  hostile  tongue  will  remain  silent.  It  is  for  us 
only  to  give  testimony  to  the  untold  value  of  a  college 
course  in  giving  breadth  and  depth  and  power  to  the  pur- 
suits of  after  life.  It  is  for  us  rather,  to  consecrate  our- 
selves anew  to  the  spirit  which  multiplies  temples  of  learn- 
ing in  every  land  and  in  every  clime.  And  looking  back- 
ward to-day  across  the  years  to  our  college  days,  we  declare 
again  and  again  that  we  made  no  mistake  when  we  took  up 
the  duties,  burdens  and  struggles  of  college  life.  Xo,  by 
all   that   we   value   most    in   life;    by   the  hopes   that  were 


Walter  S.  Haven.  73 

wakened  within  us,  and  by  the  blessings  already  received; 
by  the  lessons  of  patience  and  toil,  of  purpose  and  manhood 
which  the  years  have  taught;  by  all  these  and  more  do  we 
declare  that  these  years,  whatever  may  have  been  our  subse- 
quent lot,  we  did  not  spend  in  vain,  but  they  will  ever  be 
hallowed,  will  ever  be  consecrated  far  beyond  the  power  of 
human  speech  to  exalt  or  depreciate.  There  may  be  a  dis- 
count on  time  spent  in  other  ways,  but  there  can  never  be  a 
discount  on  the  time  spent  here. 

But  not  only  is  a  college  course  of  value  in  expanding  the 
intellect  and  fitting  it  for  a  broader  scope  of  action  in  every 
field  of  labor;  not  only  does  it  develop  character,  awaken 
lofty  ambitions,  and  teach  lessons  of  true  manhood,  but  its 
very  memory  becomes  a  living  spirit  to  mould  and  to  shape 
one's  life,  and  to  "  breathe  upon  it  perpetual  benedictions." 
Happy  he  whose  life  is  filled  with  sacred  memories !  Happy 
we  who  can  look  back  upon  the  hallowed  recollections  of 
college  days!  Who  shall  say  that  their  influence  shall  ever 
cease?  Have  they  not  become  a  part  of  our  very  being, 
giving  color,  and  form  and  vitality  to  all  the  activities  of 
life?  Has  not  memory  kept  alive  our  friendships  and  united 
us  all  into  one  harmonious  brotherhood?  Have  we  not  been 
humming  to  ourselves  from  year  to  year  the  familiar  strains 
of  our  college  songs,  while  without  a  voice  to  join  us,  we 
have  pursued  our  lonely  paths? 

"  Time  but  the  impression  deeper  makes 
As  streams  their  channels  deeper  wear." 

In  happiness  and  prosperity  we  have  looked  back  to  college 
days,  and  been  aware  of  their  significance  and  been  thankful 
for  their  influence.  And  in  those  days  of  suffering  and  toil, 
of  adversity  and  calamity  which  are  the  common  inheritance 
of  man,  we  have  learned  to  cast  our  eyes  hitherward  toward 
the  days  which  are  now  ended  and  have  tried  to  quit  us  like 
men  and  to  calm  our  restless  spirits  in  the  thoughts  of  other 
years. 


74  Greetings  from  Professional  Life. 

And  so  having  made  today  this  pilgrimage,  to  the  altars 
ot  our  early  hopes  and  ambitions,  and  having  laid  a  silent 
ottering  upon  the  shrine  of  bye-gone  days,  let  us  depart  with 
renewed  determination  that  the  altar  fires  kindled  fifty  years 
ago,  shall  never  grow  dim  and  that  the  smoke  of  their  in- 
cense shall  rise  forever  toward  heaven's  eternal  blue. 

of  rLSflmrat!fr  °f.,much  re^ret  that  ^  address  of  President  J.  W.  Strong, 
Coiw  "  Cann!feh  Uie  UeXt,  SPGf  £  Wh°  br°Ught  "  Greeti^  '~m  Daughter 
without  manuscript  '  ^  ^  *****   ^  ^^  t0    S^k 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  MISSIONS. 


REV.  JOHN    P.    HALE,    D.  D.,  CLASS    OF    1871. 

Chicago. 


It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  a  college,  founded  in  the 
spirit  and  fed  by  the  traditions  of  Beloit,  should  close  its 
first  half  century  without  having  made  some  worthy  mark 
on  the  Missionary  record  of  the  time.  Professor  Emerson 
has  told  us  that  the  college  is  the  child  as  well  as  the  mother 
of  missionaries,  both  home  and  foreign:  and  that  "  Beloit  is 
in  the  heart  of  our  country,  which  is  the  heart  of  the  world 
that  is  to  be;  and  all  the  world  is  in  her  heart.1' 

Among  the  founders  and  early  friends  of  the  College  were 
J.  D.  Stevens,  Jeremiah  Porter,  0.  F.  Curtis,  L.  H.  Wheeler, 
S.  R.  Riggs,  and  the  Caswell,  the  Montgomery  and  the 
Richardson  families,  all  of  whom  had  been  in  the  missionary 
work  at  home  and  abroad.  Their  sons  are  among  the 
missionary  sons  of  the  College. 

The  third  class  which  was  graduated  furnished  the  first  of 
our  missionaries,  and  he  preached  to  the  Indians.  This  was 
Asher  W.  Curtis,  of  '53,  who  labored  among  the  aboriginees 
in  New  York  state,  where  his  father  had  nobly  stood  before 
him.  He  is  now  a  doctor  of  divinity  at  the  head  of  a  large 
institution  for  negroes  in  North  Carolina.  One  of  his 
brothers,  Charles  B.  Curtis,  of  the  class  of  '70,  is  engaged  in 
a  similar  work  in  Alabama;  another,  William  W.  Curtis, 
of  '70,  is  a  missionary  in  Japan;  their  cousin,  Willis  Curtis 
Dewey,  D.  D.,  of  '73,  is  at  the  head  of  the  missionary  work 
centered  at  Mardin,  Turkey,  while  two  other  cousins,  Alfred 


^  The  College  and  Missions. 

C.  Wright,  of  '80,  and  Otis  C.  Olds,  of  '86,  are  engaged  in 
the  work  of  the  Mexican  mission. 

The  first  name  of  a  foreign  missionary  upon  our  catalogue 
is  that  of  Spencer  R.  Wells,  of  '59,  who  served  in  India  un- 
til his  health  demanded  his  return,  and  then  came  back  to 
toil  a  little  longer  and  to  die.  He  was  not,  however,  the 
first  upon  the  foreign  field,  for  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
he  offered  himself  to  his  country.  He  left  an  arm  at  Vicks- 
burg,  and  it  was  in  that  service  and  sacrifice  for  his  country 
that  he  was  led  to  the  missionary  service  of  his  later  life. 

The  name  of  Francis  H.  Caswell,  of  '63,  ought  not  to  be 
ommitted  from  this  honorable  roll,  though  he  never  reached 
his  chosen  field  of  Siam,  to  which  he  had  consecrated  him- 
self, and  where  his  father  before  him  had  labored.  But  his 
country  called  him  as  he  finished  his  college  course,  and  he 
fell  in  her  service.  His  place  in  Siam  was  afterward  filled 
by  John  H.  Freeman,  of  '86,  as  that  of  Wells  in  India  was 
filled  for  a  period,  all  too  brief,  by  Frederick  H.  Northrop, 
of  '85,  who  died  at  his  post  in  1891. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  flame  of  patriotism 
and  sacrifice  kindled  by  the  war  just  preceded  the  heroic 
years  in  the  College  missionary  history.  Some  of  our  no- 
blest representatives  abroad,  like  Wells,  Davis  and  Christie, 
were  soldiers  before  they  were  missionaries.  Before  the 
soldiers  had  returned  from  the  army,  those  who  hoped  to  be 
foreign  missionaries  in  the  College  had  formed  a  circle  of 
prayer,  which  resulted  in  the  student's  daily  prayer-meeting, 
which  was  influential  for  many  years  in  the  college  life. 
From  1866  to  1873  there  was  but  one  class  that  did  not  send 
its  representative  to  the  missionary  field.  The  class  of  '66 
gave  Col.  Davis  to  Japan;  '67  gave  Henry  D.  Porter,  D.  D., 
and  Arthur  H.  Smith  D.  D.,  to  China;  and  E.  A.  Wanless  for  a 
term  of  years  to  Bulgaria;— Mr.  Wanless  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  prayer  circle  and  the  first  Beloit  man  to 
reach  the  foreign  field,  not  waiting  in  this  country  for  the 


John  P.  Hale.  77 

training  of  the  theological  school.  J.  K.  Kilbourn,  of  '68, 
went  to  Mexico  for  some  years  of  serviee  there,  find  Thomas 
L.  Riggs  followed  his  father  in  his  noble  work  among  the 
Dakotas.  From  ^9  John  W.  Baird  went  to  European  Tur- 
key, and  James  D.  Eaton,  D.  I).,  to  Chihuahua,  Mexico;  and 
from  '70  William  W.  Curtis  went  to  Japan.  The  class  of 
'71  gave  T.  D.  Christie,  D.  D.,  and  the  class  of  '73  W.  C. 
Dewey,  D.  D.,  both  to  Asiatic  Turkey.  Two  more  names 
are  added  to  this  same  mission  field  from  the  class  of  '77, 
namely,  C.  F.  Gates,  D.  D.,  and  J.  A.  Ainslie. 

During  this  decade  no  college  furnished  more  men  for 
foreign  service  to  the  American  Board  than  our  own  except 
Amherst,  and  no  other  college  gave  an  equal  number  to  that 
Board  but  Yale. 

Of  the  later  classes,  besides  those  already  named,  D.  A. 
Richardson,  of  '81,  served  some  years  in  the  Turkish  mission 
to  which  his  father  had  given  his  life;  and  J.  E.  Jacobson,  of 
'82,  is  laboring  with  T.  L.  Riggs  among  the  Dakotas.  Of 
the  twenty-two  names  mentioned,  four  should  be  assigned 
to  the  North  American  Indians,  four  to  Mexico,  seven  to 
Turkey,  two  to  India,  one  to  Siam,  two  to  China  and  two  to 
Japan. 

Besides  these,  ought  to  be  mentioned  A.  C.  Walkup  of 
Wisconsin,  who  studied  but  did  not  graduate  here;  George 
Ford,  D.  D.,  one  of  the  most  useful  men  in  the  Syrian  mission, 
who  took  his  early  years  of  study  here  but  graduated  at 
Williams;  William  D.  Alexander,  President  of  Oahu  College, 
a  tutor  for  some  years  here;  and  Henry  M.  Riggs,  who  stud- 
ied here  before  he  joined  his  brother  among  the  Dakotas; 
besides  the  Indians,  Eli  Abraham,  Samuel  Hopkins,  James 
Garvey,  James  Lynd  and  John  and  Charles  A.  Eastman  who 
studied  here  and  returned  to  labor  among  their  fellow  In- 
dians. 

Perhaps  the  most  distinct  Beloit  missionary  circle  abroad 
is  to  be  found  in  Pang  Chuang,  China,  where  are  Porter  and 


78  The  College  and  Missions. 

Smith  of  "§!, u par  nobilefratr urn"  io  quote  Professor  Emerson 
again,  "companions  rather  than  competitors  in  study  at  col- 
lege, and  now;  with  their  wives  (also  of  our  college  circle, 
and  one  of  them  daughter  of  President  Chapin)  and  with 
the  sister  of  Dr.  Porter,  forming  a  center  of  grace  and  truth 
in  China;1  There  are  pairs  of  Beloit  men,  however,  in  other 
fields,  together,  or  not  so  far  apart  but  they  can  call  out  to 
one  another  some  cheering  message  through  the  watches  of 
the  night.  But  whether  near  or  far,  they  carry  in  their 
hearts  the  spirit  and  temper,  which  the  College  taught  them 
and  which  through  all  passing  years  and  all  life's  changes 
of  condition  and  circumstance,  they  cannot  forget.  Their 
letters  from  their  fields  over  and  again  bear  that  witness. 

Beloit  greets  them  with  affectionate  pride  on  her  golden 
anniversary.     They  are  her  worthy  sons,  and  in  all  the  cor- 
ners of  the  earth,  whatever  be  the  language  or  dialect,  the 
accent  of  their  speech  is  her  accent.     We  cannot  recount 
their  achievements  in  words  to-day,  but  the  hearts  of  many 
of  us  swell  as  we  think  of  them.     They  are  working  in  form- 
ative, if  not  plastic  periods  of  history.     The  China,  Japan, 
Turkey  and  Mexico  of  to-morrow  will  not  be  the  China,  Japan, 
Turkey  and  Mexico  of  yesterday.     And  when  the  history  of 
these  rehabilitated  empires  is  written,  men  will  not  forget, 
or  if  they  do,  God  will    not  forget  what  our  little  group  in 
Pang  Chuang  has  done,  what  Davis  in   Japan,  what  Eaton 
in  Mexico,  what  Christie  and  Gates  and  Dewey  in  Turkey, 
and  what  their  fellows  who  represent  this  College  in  these 
and  other  fields  have  done  toward  the  great  reconstruction. 
In  the  historic  places  of  the  world  some  of  them  are  stand- 
ing.    In  Mosul,  the  ancient  Nineveh,  there  is  Ainslie,  and 
in  the  home  of  Alexander,  there  is  Baird,   laying  founda- 
tions of  New  Empires.     In  the  land  of  Gautama  there  are 
the  memory  of  Wells  and  the  bones  of  Northrup.     At  the 
headwaters  of  the  great  river  of  Babylon  there  are  Dewey 
and  Gates,  capable  men,  with  thronged  class-rooms.     When 


John  P.  Hale.  79 

the  University  of  Edinburgh  recently  conferred  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Laws  on  Mr.  Gates  they  mentioned  as  the  rea- 
sons for  the  honor — they  have  a  way  over  there  that  some- 
times might  be  embarrassing  on  this  side  the  water,  of  stat- 
ing the  reasons  for  the  degrees  they  give, — they  mentioned 
his  distinguished  service  to  humanity  during  and  after  the 
Armenian  massacres,  as  well  as  his  scholarly  attainments  in 
three  languages.  And  in  Tarsus,  birthplace  of  St.  Paul 
there  is  Christie,  president  of  the  Institute  which  bears,  not 
without  reason,  the  name  of  the  great  apostle.  From  the 
ruined  castle  near  by,  in  which  Antony  entertained  Cleo- 
patra, his  boys  are  taking  stones  to  go  into  the  new  college 
walls.  And  the  pillar  on  which  his  observatory  telescope 
rests,  stands  on  an  old  Roman  arch  built  there  before  the 
days  of  Paul. 

So  are  our  Beloit  brothers,  well  'round  the  world,  building 
new  centuries  upon  old  centuries,  and  replacing  cruel  and 
dark  civilizations  by  the  institutions  and  the  enlightenment 
of  a  better  day.  Through  them  Beloit  finds  a  voice  afar  off. 
In  them  President  Chapin  and  Professor  Blaisdell  and  their 
brothers  of  the  elder  days  are  speaking  still.  For  the  finest 
and  most  potent  thing  they  carry  is  the  spirit  they  got  at 
Beloit,  which  is  a  spirit  of  consecration  and  of  light.  It 
will  prevail,  too.  For  Beloit  herself  got  it  from  Him  who  is 
the  true  light,  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world. 


Note.-  Mr.  Ellsworth  Huntington,  of  the  class  which  graduated  in  1897,  and 
who  now  is  to  go  as  the  special  representative  of  Beloit  to  assist  President  C.  F. 
Gates,  Beloit,  '77,  at  Euphrates  College.  Harpoot.  Turkey,  should  now  be  added 
to  the  list  of  the  foreign  missionaries  of  the  first  half  century,  making  their  num- 
ber:   Graduates  of  Beloit.  22 ;  non-graduates,  9.    Total,  31. 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  THE  MINISTRY 


REV.  F.  B.  PULLAN,  (LASS    OF    1871. 
Pkovidknce,  R.  I. 


Mr.  President  and  Friends  of  Beloit    College: 

It  is  the  highest  honor  I  can  ever  expect  from  alma  mater 
to  be  the  representative,  on  this  great  occasion,  of  the  large 
and  noble  class  of'  men  she  has  sent  into  the  world  to  do  the 
work  of   the  Christian    ministry.     It  is  fitting  that  at  this 
jubilee  observance  when  the  influence  of  the  College  for  the 
first  half  century  of  its  existence  is  revived,  those  who  have 
entered  the  ranks  of  the    Christian   ministry   should   have 
some    special  recognition,  since   there  was   a  time  when  it 
seemed  as  if  the  college  influence  was   centered  upon  secur- 
ing students  who  should  become  clergymen.     Nor  is  this  to 
be  marvelled  at  when  we  remember  that  the   larger  part  of 
the  board  of  trustees  from   the   beginning  were  themselves 
clergymen,  and  that  the  honored  members  of  the  faculty  at 
first  were  obtained  from  the  same  ranks.     He  whose  revered 
memory  and  notable  influence  we  this  day  embalm  in  mar- 
ble—the honored  first  president,  and  he  who  now  so  worthily 
follows  him  and  fills  the  chair  were  both  pastors  before  they 
were  presidents,  and   the  proportion  of  all   graduates  who 
have  gone  out.  who  have  entered  the  work  of  the   ministry 
of  the  gospel  exceeds  that  of  any  other  one  sphere  of  life- 
work.     The  influence  of  the  college  in  the   lives  of  such  as 
are  preachers  of  righteousness  in  Christ  from  pulpits  in  the 


F.  B.  Pullan. 


81 


land  is  felt  from  New  England's  shores  to  the  lake  regions  of 
the  Interior,  and  throughout  the  New  West  to  the  Far  West. 
In  the  midst  of  the  city's  masses  and  millionaires;  in  the 
home  missionary's  prairie  parish  and  hill-country  wilderness; 
in  the  foreign  fields;  beneath  the  shadows  of  the  oldest  cen- 
ters of  culture  in  the  land,  and  amidst  the  newest  and  wild- 
est forces  of  this  fierce  nineteenth-century  life,  have  Beloit  s 
sons  as  Christian  ministers  stood  and  still  stand,  honored 
each  in  his  place,  faithful,  according  to  the  fashioning  which 
the  College  formed  in  and  for  him,  during  those  days  of  his 
student  training  according  to  the  pattern  found  in  Christ. 

This  large  class  of  her  graduates  during  these  fifty  years 
look  to  her  to-day,  those  who  are  still  in  the  earth  strife, 
with  the  affection  of  loving  sons  and  with  the  glow  of  an 
inspiration  that  quickens  every  pure  passion  as  they  recall 
what  "old  Beloit"  did  for  them. 

But  it  seems  clear  that  the  chief  place,  at  least  in  point  ot 
proportion,  is  not  in  the  future  to  be  held  by  the  preachers 
that  Beloit  sends  forth.  The  time  has  past  when  the  col- 
lege will  be  thought  of  as  chiefly  a  preparatory  school  tor 
the  theological  seminary. 

Her  sphere  is  to  be— is  already,  larger  than  even  one  so 

noble  as  that. 

She  is  to  henceforth  prepare  Christian  men  and  women 
for  every  work  of  God.  She  is  to  so  culture  her  students  as 
to  leave  upon  each  one  the  deep  impression  that  God  calls 
him— no  matter  in  what  sphere  of  work  He  sends  him,  and 
in  thus  preparing  lives  for  educated  influential  usefulness  in 
all  the  walks  of  life,  she  will  achieve  larger  success  than 
the  splendid  results  which  we  all  so  gratefully  acknowledge 
at  this  time. 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  THE  STATE. 

AI..KXA.NDEB   K.  MATHESON,  L.  T,  B,  CLASS  OF  1890. 
Janesville. 


I  have  been  asked  to  say  something  from  the  standpoint 

to  1  v  ryTen  I  S,ba"  SPeak  W"h  C0Ura^  and  with  freedom 
11'        I  ^       °re  me  m*n'  '°yal  S0QS  of  Beioit  College 

™°m\7  ch:rn  th: legal  profession  as  a  iife  ™*  «*  *£, 

are  making  th.s  mfluence  felt  in  the  communities  where 
they  are  putt.ng  forth  their  efforts.  In  what  I  shall  say  to- 
day I  „lea„  to  d,v,de  my  allegiance  between  my  profession 
and  the  alumni  of  the  College. 

I  need  not,  in  such  a  gathering  as  this  one,  call  attention 
to  the  predominance  of   lawyers  in  the  Continental  Con- 
gresses, in   the  Constitutional  Convention,  and  among  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.     From  the  be- 
ginnings of  our  national  existence  to  the  present  time  the 
member  of  the  legal  profession  have  been   most  numerous 
and  most  mfluent.al  in  all  departments  of  our  national  gov- 
ernment.    It  is  the  lawyer's  duty  to  improve  the  law!  as 
they  now  are.  and  to  bring  men   into  sympathy  with   the 
highest  and  noblest  principles  of  equity  and  justice.     The 
lawyer  should  not  attempt  to  set  aside  the  law.  but  he 
should  strive  to  cause  honor  and  righteousness  to  prevail  be- 
tween man  and  man. 

It  should  be  the  purpose  of  every  institution  of  learnine 
to  prepare  its  students  for  wise  and  useful  leadership  in  the 
Mate.     Leaders  there  must  be  to  guide  the  destinies  of  men 


Alexander  E.  Ma  the  son.  83 

and  to  use  most  successfully  the  opportunities  and  advan- 
tages that  arise  out  of  our  social  and  governmental  rela- 
tions. Many  problems  confront  us  to-day,  demanding  the 
noblest  sacrifices  on  the  part  of  the  scholar,  the  lawyer,  and 
all  who  have  something  to  give  for  the   good  of  the  State. 

But,  mere  intellectual  training  is  not  sufficient  to  prepare 
men  for  the  best  leadership.  An  educated  rogue  is  the  most 
dangerous  rogue.  One  of  the  gravest  dangers  in  our  nation 
to-day  is  the  fact  that  able  men,  with  well-stored  minds  and 
intellectual  faculties  of  the  very  highest  order,  are  manipu- 
lating politics,  controlling  and  corrupting  men  in  our  larger 
cities,  and  cajoling  voters  for  their  own  personal  gain  and 
glory.  These  men  must  be  met  and  overcome  by  leaders  of 
equal  calibre,  who  also  have  hearts  that  beat  for  the  happi- 
ness and  liberties  of  the  masses  of  men.  The  normal,  use- 
ful, and  most  grandly  successful  man  is  the  one  who,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  equipment  of  vigorous  and  well-developed  in- 
tellectual powers,  possesses  a  heart  that  has  developed  and 
strengthened  with  loving,  unselfish  service  for  the  people 
and  the  State. 

This  is  the  service — again  I  say  it— this  is  the  service  that 
Beloit  College  has  now  given  to  her  sons  for  a  well-rounded 
half  century.  For  fifty  years  she  has,  through  her  noble 
professors  and  instructors,  and  by  the  aid  of  those  who  have 
provided  funds  for  her  endowment  and  equipment,  instilled 
into  the  hearts  of  her  alumni  and  students  those  Christian 
principles  which  are  at  the  sources  of  all  true  progress  and 
liberty  and  happiness.  And  herein  is  the  greatest  glory  of 
our  alma  mater,  that  her  sons  have  gone  out  into  the  world 
to  mingle  with  men,  to  solve  their  problems,  share  their  joys 
and  sorrows,  and  bear  their  burdens,  with  the  idea  firmly 
imbedded  in  their  minds  that  the  College  has  stood  not  alone 
for  a  "  true  science,"  but  also  for  a  "  pure  faith.11 

We  rejoice,  to-day,  in  the  splendid  educatienal  advantages 
in  our  own  land.     We  rejoice  in  the  intellectual  achieve- 


84  The  College  and  the  State. 

ments  of  Beloit  College,  and  no  less,  aye,  more,  do  we  glory 
in  the  moral  achievements  of  our  alma  mater.  We  wish 
the  best  things  for  all  institutions  of  learning,  wishing  for 
them  the  very  largest  success,  and  hoping  that  they,  like 
Beloit,  may  send  out  men  (and  we  are  now  at  liberty  to  add, 
women  too)  not  alone  strong  and  keen  in  mind,  but  who 
are  actuated  by  the  hopes  of  large,  wholesome,  noble  and 
exalted  service  and  self-sacrifice  in  the  interests  of  the  State 
and  its  people,  of  the  wide  world  and  the  tribes  and  nations 
thereof. 

We  here  renew  our  devotion  and  loyalty  to  Beloit,  with 
her  fifty  years  of  splendid  service,  hoping  that  she  may 
round  out  many  periods  of  fifty  years  each,  and  that  each 
succeeding  Golden  Jubilee  may  find  her  glory  brighter,  her 
fame  wider,  and  her  history  richer  in  blessed  memories  and 
in  the  accomplishment  of  mighty  works  for  Christ's  king- 
dom. 

We  are  happy,  upon  this  occasion,  in  the  thought  that  so 
many  of  those  who  have  woven  into  their  lives  the  princi- 
ples and  ideals  of  Beloit  are  doing  valiant  service  in  our  own 
land,  making  themselves  felt  as  leaders  of  men.  They  are 
at  work  not  merely  as  lawyers,  but  as  physicians  and  minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel  and  men  in  various  callings.  It  does  not 
matter  what  the  calling  or  profession  is,  so  that  one  obeys 
the  voice  of  God  in  his  chosen  life  work;  and  all  have  placed 
upon  them  the  obligations  of  wise  leadership. 

And,  we  are  also  happy  that  such  is  the  record  of  Beloit 
College  not  only  in  our  own  land,  but  that  her  sons  have 
carried  the  doctrines  of  equality  and  freedom  and  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ  to  Mexico,  to  Turkey,  to  Asia  Minor,  to  India, 
fo  China,  to  Japan,  and  to  the  the  Islands  of  the  Sea. 


A  GLANCE  AT  THE  INTELLECTUAL 
ATTITUDES  OF  THE  COLLEGE. 


PEOF.  T.  C.  CHAMBERLIN,  PH.  D.,  LL.  D.,  CLASS  OF  1886. 

Chicago. 


The  truest  index  of  an  institution  is  its  attitude;  its  intel- 
lectual and  moral  attitude.  The  largeness  or  smallness  of 
an  institution  may  be  more  or  less  the  expression  of  circum- 
stances. Its  richness  or  its  poverty  may  be  more  or  less  the 
accident  of  personal  friendship.  Opulence  and  patronage 
may  be  indeed  a  true  index  of  merit  aud  may  be  the  legiti- 
mate reward  of  industry,  skill,  and  true  worthiness,— indeed 
for  the  most  part  they  doubtless  are  so,— but  they  are  not 
uniformly  and  necessarily  so,  and  we  may  not  judge  by 
these  things  if  we  would  pass  righteous  judgment.  But  the 
attitude  of  an  institution  is  a  thing  of  its  own  creation.  Cir- 
cumstances cannot  control  it  unless  it  is  the  servile  subject 
of  circumstances.  Riches  and  poverty  cannot  control  it  un- 
less it  is  the  slave  of  monetary  considerations.  Public  opin- 
ion cannot  control  it  unless  it  is  the  creature  of  public  opin- 
ion. Even  if  its  attitude  be  controlled  by  such  influences, 
that  attitude  is  none  the  less  its  truest  index.  It  correctly 
portrays  the  moral  character  of  the  institution  in  the  very 
face  of  exhibiting  the  causes  that  dominate  it. 

During  the  past  half-century  Beloit  College  has  been 
called  upon  to  take  its  attitude  upon  questions  of  profound 
importance.  These  have  lain  alike  in  the  intellectual,  the 
moral  and  the  spiritual  fields.      During  the  half-century 


86     A  Glance  at  the  Intellectual  Attitudes  of  the  College. 

progressive  scholarship  has  unveiled  vast  stores  of  truth.  It 
is  doubtless  far  within  limits  to  affirm  that  no  previous  half- 
century  has  made  greater  revelations  of  truth  or  has  devel- 
oped therewith  more  strenuous  questions  of  appropriate  col- 
legiate attitude.  These  revelations  are  chiefly  associated  with 
the  newer  studies.  A  great  group  of  these  marshal  them- 
selves under  the  name  science  and  the  attitude  of  the  college 
toward  science  may  be  taken  to  typify  its  attitude  toward 
these  quest.ons  and  toward  the  newer  fields  of  education 
that  are  rising  into  recognition. 

To  show  by  tangible  facts  that  the  attitude  of  the  College 
has  been  one  of  increasing  sympathy  and  progressive  hospi- 
tality to  the  younger  studies  there  is  need  to  cite  the  appor- 
tionments made  to  these  in  the  earlier  days.     The  smallness 
of  these  apportionments  may  not  seem  to  bear  a  tribute  of 
honor  to  the  fathers  whom  we  especially  delight  to  honor 
today.     But  we   must  remember  that  the  fathers  are  hon- 
ored not  ,n  the  dimensions  and  proportions  of  the  tree  they 
planted,  but  in  the  amplitude  and  symmetry  into  which  that 
tree  by  its  vitality   and  inherent  virtue  has  grown      The 
earlier  curriculum  of  the  College  was  a  reflection  of  the  edu- 
cational ideas  of  those  times,  improved  upon   indeed   bv  the 
wisdom  of  the  fathers,  but  none  the  less  a  reflection  of  the 
times.     Its  full   merit  can   only  be  judged  by  those  who 
knew  that  out  of  which   it  had  grown,  as  I  do  not;  who 
knew  the  conditions  under  which  it  took  form,  and  who  also 
knew  as  we  do,  that  into  which  it  has  grown.     But  to  meas- 
ure  this   growth,   to  determine  the  recent  trend  and  the 
present  outlook  we  must  note  the  limitations  of  the  earlier 
days.     I  trust  that  in  this  closing  moment  you  will   permit 
me  to  turn  from  grateful  retrospect  to  frank  comparisons 
for  their  prospective  values.     The  day  calls  for  thought  of 
the  future  as  well  as  of  the  past. 

We  of  the  50s  and  60s  recall  the  recognition  which  the 
fields  of  science  had  in  the  second  decade  of  the  College 


T.  C.  Chamberlin.  87 

The  curriculum  in  its  academic  and  collegiate  requirements 
covered  seven  years;  three  terms  per  year;  three  studies  per 
day,  63  units,  all  of  which  were  required.     Of  the  63  units 
there  were  given  to  the  study  of  the  intimate  constitution 
of  matter  and  to  the  atomic   energies  which   enter   into  all 
our  environment  and  into  all  our  acts   and   condition  them, 
two   units.     To  the  study  of  the  molecular  and  molar  con- 
stitution of  matter,  and  of  the  energies   that  permeate  it, 
which  likewise  condition  all  our  activities,  there  were  given, 
out  of  the  63  units,  two  units.    To  the  history  of  the  earth,  a 
vista  of  millions  of  years,  full  of  the  most  profound  and 
revolutionary   problems,   there    were  given,   out  of  the  63 
units,  one   or  two   units.     To  that   broadest  of  all  the  sci- 
ces  which  leads  out  the  thought  to  the  immeasurable  limits 
of  the  stellar  universe  and  overwhelms   the   imagination  by 
the  immensity  of  creation,  there   was  given,  out   of  the  63 
units,  one   or   two  units.     To  the  vital  world,  to  the   study 
of  the  forces  of  life  and  the   organization  of  living  things, 
to  the  great  field  of  biology,  there  was  given,  something,  in 
certain  years,  I  believe,  but  neither  botany  nor  zoology  found 
a  place  iu  my  course.     The  members  of  our  race  were  going 
into  premature  graves  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  if  not  by 
millions,  every  year  because  sufficient  biological  knowledge 
to  point  out  the  way  of  escape  had   not  yet   been   attained; 
but  neither  here  nor  in  any  other  American  college,  so  far  as 
I  know,  were  provisions   made  for   the   promotion   of  that 
knowledge  at  all  commensurate  with  its  extreme  importance. 
Circumstances  indeed  placed   their  limitations,  but  I  would 
that  I  could  say  that  full  appreciation  and  a  proportionate 
allotment  were   always   accorded.     It  thus   appears  that  out 
of  the  63  units,  little   more  than  one-tenth  all   told  were 
given  to  these  great  fields,  as  necessary  to  broad  culture,  as 
they  are  to  balanced  intelligence. 

Today  the  fundamental  sciences  have  much  more  ample 
space  assigned  them  in  the  curricula,  and  beyond  these  there 


88     A  Glance  at  the  Intellectual  Attitudes  of  the  College. 

are  large  possibilities  of  election.  He  who  would  know  the 
fundamental  constitution  of  matter  may  seek  it  at  notable 
length  and  with  large  facilities.  He  who  would  learn  the 
inner  mysteries  of  physical  energy  may  prolong  his  search 
with  excellent  appliances.  He  who  would  learn  of  the 
forms  and  functions  of  life  may  find  a  goodly  measure  of 
time  and  of  aids  at  his  command.  He  who  would  know  the 
story  of  creation  may  dwell  long  on  its  vast  periods.  He 
who  would  look  into  the  depth  of  the  heavens  may.  prolong 
his  vision  with  the  telescopic  eye,  thanks  to  the  gift  of  a 
noble  woman  and  the  self-sacrificing  devotion  of  a  noble 
man.  In  all  these  the  bounds  have  been  enlarged  and  the 
privilege  of  extension  at  the  will  of  the  student  has  been 
added.  More  than  this,  sympathy  has  increased.  There  has 
been  a  growth  of  the  conviction  that  the  works  of  God  are 
not  wholly  inferior  to  the  works  of  man  as  a  subject  of 
study.  Equilibrium  of  study  may  not  yet  have  been  reached, 
but  the  balances  are  swinging  and  that  means  true  equili- 
brium in  the  end.  The  College  has  made  greater  progress 
in  enlarging  and  enobliug  the  sphere  of  the  sciences  in  the 
college  courses  than  has  its  famous  prototype  on  the  north 
shore  of  Long  Island  Sound.  Would  that  the  Yale  of  the 
East  would  keep  step  with  the  "Yale  of  the  West'1  in  this 
laudable  progress. 

The  early  days,  here  as  elsewhere,  were  davs  of  extreme 
specialization.  For  the  preparatory  years  and  two  years  in 
college  more  than  one-half  of  the  time  was  given  to  a  few 
selections  of  ancient  literature,  grand  selections  indeed,  but 
limited  selections  none  the  less.  The  justification  of  this,  if 
it  were  justified,  lay  in  the  cruder  state  of  most  other  lines 
of  study,  a  state  which  was  perhaps  as  much  a  result  as  a 
cause  of  the  general  collegiate  policy  of  the  preceding  cen- 
turies. The  educational  world  had  not  then  fully  learned 
that  a  new  field  offers  a  rich  disciplinary  opportunity  when 
cultivated  by  the  investigative  method.     This  [method  has 


T.  C.  Chamberlin.  89 

scarcely  yet  come  to  a  well  recognized  place  as  a  supremely 
effective  instrument  of  education.  In  its  absence  choice  fell 
upon  the  classics  and  mathematics  as  best  organized  for  dis- 
ciplinary purposes,  and  for  five  years  but  little  else  was  pur- 
sued. The  substance  of  thought  was  scant  but  the  exercise 
was  abundant.  The  educational  process  was  not  so  much 
growth  by  nourishment  as  development  by  exertion; — plenty 
of  work  on  a  light  intellectual  stomach.  The  more  varied 
studies  of  the  later  college  course  added  something  of  breadth 
but  the  course  remained  one  of  severe  limitation  and  special- 
ization. It  is  one  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  educational  lan- 
guage that  this  most  specialized  of  all  culture  courses  has 
long  appropriated  to  itself  terms  of  peculiar  amplitude, 
while  more  distributive  courses  have  been  characterized  by 
adjectives  of  limitation.  Collegiate  language  is  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made,  as  witness  our  "commencements"  at 
the  end,  our  "bachelors1'  made  by  a  parchment  instead  of  celi- 
bacy, our  "Arts"  for  a  Greek  course,  our  "broad"  for  what  is 
intensive,  our  "specialization1'  for  what  is  distributive,  and 
so  on  to  the  end  of  the  list. 

But  there  has  been  much  easement  of  this  former  specializ- 
ation. The  thoroughness  which  prolonged  courses  alone 
can  give  is  still  retained  and  even  more  extreme  specialization 
along  the  old  lines  is  still  possible  for  those  who  choose  it. 
But  an  inflexible  specialization  is  no  longer  the  imposed  lot 
of  all.  A  wider  range  in  substance  of  thought  and  a  more 
varied  discipline  are  now  offered. 

This  amelioration  has  been  attained  chiefly  through  the 
decadence  of  the  curriculum  system  aud  the  growth  of  the 
elective  system.  The  early  days,  here  as  elsewhere,  were  the 
days  of  the  fixed  curriculum.  From  beginning  to  end  the 
course  was  predetermined  for  each  and  all  alike.  Those 
were  the  days  when  the  committee  on  curriculum  in  the  wis- 
dom of  its  closet,  and  the  faculty  in  the  wisdom  of  its  cham- 
ber determined  that  choice  of  subjects  and  that  order  of 


90     A  Glance  at  the  Intellectual  Attitudes  of  the  College. 

study  which  was  to  give  the  best  outcome  for  everyone  no 
matter  how  his  intellect  had  been  fashioned  by  nature.  But 
the  days  of  the  rigid  curriculum  are  passing.  The  attempt 
to  make  the  highest  possible  product  out  of  every  kind  of 
material  by  a  uniform  process  is  being  abandoned.  The  re- 
quired factor  of  the  curriculum  system,  while  it  still  lingers, 
is  on  the  road  to  a  natural  and  merited  obsolescence.  A  fixed 
curriculum  may  have  been  a  necessary  concession  to  the 
scantiness  of  available  knowledge,  the  smallness  of  available 
means  and  the  limitations  of  available  teachers.  But  these 
limitations  are  passing.  Careful  personal  adaptation  of 
varied  processes  to  varying  talent  is  the  rational  mode  which 
is  growing  into  use  and  must  prevail.  Rigid  curricula  are 
now  confined  to  the  freshman  year,  and  even  there  a  choice 
is  offered  between  three  courses.  The  introduction  of  elec- 
tives  from  the  freshman  year  onward  facilitates  personal 
adaptation  and  affords  the  departments  a  means  of  individ- 
ualization and  of  development. 

All  these  internal  evolutions  are  most  vital.  They  lie  at 
the  heart  of  the  college's  intellectual  work.  They  signify 
an  amplification  of  its  scholarly  spirit.  They  testify  to  an 
increasing  impartiality  of  intellectual  attitude.  They  reveal 
a  broadening  of  sympathy.  They  exhibit  an  enlarged  recog- 
nition of  the  individuality  of  the  student.  They  imply  a 
more  tender  care  for  the  younger  and  struggling  depart- 
ments. 

In  outward  relations  the  liberalizing  of  the  list  of  entrance 
studies  is  another  laudable  step,  implying  an  increasingly 
generous  attitude  toward  the  secondary  schools  and  toward 
the  choices  of  parents  and  students. 

A  change  of  attitude  more  demonstrative,  and  certainly 
not  less  significant  than  any  yet  noted,  has  recently  taken 
place.  Throughout  nearly  the  whole  half-century  the  Col- 
lege was  not  open  to  man  generic,  but  only  to  man  specific. 
One-half  of  man   generic  —  the   better   half — though   en- 


T.  C.  Chamherlin.  91 

dowed  with  intellects  keen  and  subtle,  though  possessed  of 
natures  noble  and  responsive,  though  inspired  with  strong 
desires  for  culture,  were  yet  debarred  its  halls.  This  was  but 
an  expression  of  an  inherited  and  cultivated  prejudice.  But 
the  College  has  had  the  courage  to  move  on  across  the  pre- 
judice in  the  line  of  equal  justice  and  a  profounder  appre- 
hension of  the  functions  of  education.  Blessed  be  the  Col- 
lege! 

But  there  have  been  issues  profounder  than  even  the 
problems  of  the  curriculum  and  the  problem  of  the  sexes. 
The  incoming  flood  of  new  truth  has  touched  upon  the  basis 
of  faith.  The  College  has  been  compelled  to  determine  its 
attitude  toward  the  inflow  of  truth  when  it  threatened  a 
change  in  cherished  beliefs.  Mark,  I  do  not  say  compelled 
a  change  of  belief,  but  threatened  a  change  of  belief.  The 
College  has  had  to  face  the  question  of  welcoming  unwel- 
come truth.  It  has  had  to  face  the  further  question 
whether  it  should  not  be  itself  a  producer  of  unwelcome 
truth.  Seeing  the  snow  upon  the  mountain  and  its  melting 
inevitable  it  has  had  to  consider  whether  it  should  be  at  the 
springing  of  the  floods  giving  them  early  and  free  release 
and  guiding  them  into  their  appropriate  channels,  or  far 
down  the  valley  building  ineffectual  dams.  The  attitude  of 
the  College  has  been  neither  radically  progressive  nor  radi- 
cally conservative.  If  the  College  has  not  always  been  work- 
ing enthusiastically  at  the  springing  of  the  floods  it  has  not 
altogether  been  building  dams  in  the  vallevs.  It  has  held 
with  much  tenacity  to  the  old,  but  it  has  not  excluded  the 
new.  And  as  the  years  have  gone  on  there  has  been  a  transfer- 
ence of  effort  from  the  defensive  to  the  productive.  There 
has  been  an  increasing  recognition  of  the  fact  that  safety 
lies  in  leadership  in  the  production  of  truth;  leadership 
and  control  at  the  very  inception  of  the  inflowing  tide,  and 
the  College  and  her  sons  have  made  their  modest  contribu- 
tions to  the  inflow  of  new  truth.     If  the  atmosphere  of  faith 


92     A  Glance  at  the  Intellectual  Attitudes  of  the  College. 

proves  the  most  fertile  mother  of  new-born  truth  the  child- 
ren will  be  at  once  the  jewels  and  the  proof  of  maternal 
vitality. 

Limitations  of  resources  may  put  narrow  limits  on  the 
contributions  which  such  a  college  as  ours  can  make  to  the 
growing  sum  of  knowledge,  but  it  puts  no  limits  on  the 
sympathetic  attitudes  it  may  assume  toward  them.  It  is 
grateful  to  note  that  that  attitude  has  been  one  of  increas- 
ing hospitality.  Faith  best  expresses  itself  in  such  a  stead- 
fast confidence  in  the  universality  of  the  divine  imminence 
that  it  invites  the  most  unhesitating  search  in  all  fields,  con- 
fident that  the  outcome  cannot  be  other  than  ultimate  good. 

The  College  has  ever  been  earnest  and  steadfast  in  its 
loyalty  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  factors  of  education.  So 
pre-eminent  was  this  at  the  outset  that  growth  was  scarcely 
possible.  No  changes  of  attitude,  except  in  forms  and 
aspects,  are  to  be  discerned  here.  And,  save  in  free  rectifica- 
tion by  advancing  knowledge,  may  there  never  be  such. 
Circumstances  and  conditions  may  put  limitations  upon  the 
intellectual  riches  that  may  be  offered  here,  but  no  circum- 
stance nor  condition  should  abate  by  one  jot  or  tittle  the 
earnestness  of  moral  endeavor  which  is  the  distinctive  char- 
acteristic of  the  College.  The  truth  should  ever  make 
that  endeavor  free  and  keep  it  free  from  all  bondage.  If  its 
forms  must  change,  let  them  change,  but  let  the  earnest- 
ness of  endeavor  remain.  This  is  the  peculiar  birthright  of 
the  College.  This  is  its  great  treasure.  It  should  be  cher- 
ished as  its  one  great  possession.  This  is  not  a  thing  apart 
from  the  intellectual  work,  but  the  soul  of  the  intellectual 
work.  Scientia  vera  cum  fide  pura.  Purity  of  faith  is  con- 
ditioned on  sincerity  and  rectitude  of  intellectnal  action. 
May  there  be  no  bounds  to  the  search  for  true  knowledge. 
May  there  be  no  limits  to  the  purity  of  faith.  Scientia  vera 
cum  fide  pura. 


ODE  -THE  FOUR  HORIZONS. 


Professor  Theodore  Lyman  Wright. 


Light,  and  dark,  and  full  of  song! — 
That  was  the  forest  whose  vaults  ran  long 
Beneath  arabesque  archings  of  gold  and  green, 
Through  a  stillness  heard,  and  a  darkness  seen 
To  the  bluff's  high  dome  with  its  prophet  oak 
That  topped  above  the  brother  trees, 
And  knew  their  shadowed  mysteries, 
And,  like  Dodona,  in  a  breeze 
Spoke  miracles,  or  nearly  spoke. 

Light,  and  dark,  and  full  of  joy!  - 
That  was  the  eye  of  the  red-skin  boy 
Whose  copper  breast  on  the  Turtle  Mound 
Held  a  hammering  heart  'twixt  the  sky  and  the  ground 
And  whose  vision  was  off  through  the  oak  tree  leaves 
To  the  swimming  line  of  sky  and  earth 
Where  Age  says  "End"  and  Youth  says  "Birth"  ; 
For  boys  assert  with  perennial  mirth 
What  devils  doubt  and  God  believes. 

In  sun  and  shade  spread  near  and  far 
The  happy  fields  of  hunt  and  war, 
While,  North  and  South  and  West  and  East, 
The  four  horizons  never  ceased 
Their  witching  siege  around  this  lad, 
Enringed  by  missiles  of  unrest, 
By  arrow-shots  of  calls  unguessed, 
By  secrets  left  but  half-expressed 
In  the  oracles  the  oak-leaves  had. 

Light  and  dark,  in  landscape  rhyme, 
Up  the  Eastern  terraces  climb 
Meadows  rhythmical  with  groves; 


94  Ode— The  Four  Horizons. 

And  The  East  her  secret  loves, 
For  she  feels  her  hazels  parted 
By  new  roads  the  White  Men  make 
For  ambition  or  Christ's  sake 
To  the  River  from  the  Lake,— 
And  the  Founder's  trail  is  started. 
Over  shooting-stars  and  sedges, 
Down  across  the  brooks  and  ledges,— 
To  the  Red-boy  this  might  seem 
Like  the  substance  of  his  dream— 
For  the  Future  in  procession, 
Dusty- wagon,  weary  beast, 

Ushers  in  an  Aaron-priest, 

And  the  wise  Men  of  the  East 
Are  come  down  to  claim  possession. 
To  East  hills  the  Campus  owes 
Thanks,  because  the  overflows 
Of  the  sunrise  have  been  lent  us, 
And  the  Fathers  have  been  sent  us 
Trooping  like  Christ's  new  Apollos,  - 
Chapin,  Porter,  Emerson! 
These  have  not  detained  the  sun; 
These  have  raced  Hyperion 
And  shall  know  the  palm  that  follows. 

Clear  or  dim— the  North  lay  thus 
For  the  Indian,  as  for  us>, 
Quite  the  same  that  God  had  made, 
With  that  Artist's  banks  of  shade 
Cut  by  glints  of  river  sheen 
Where  Big  Hill's  old  outline  ran 
Like  a  tame  Leviathan 
Nosing  where  the  stream  began 
To  turn  down  from  the  unseen. 

"To  the  hills  I  lift  mine  eyes," 

David  sang;  and  there  replies 

Every  David  of  the  aeons 

Chanting  wholesome  Nature  paeons 
In  the  heart's  primeval  mood. 
Here  a  Blaisdell  spirit  longs 
For  a  woodland  cure  of  wrongs 


Theodore  Lyman  Wriyht.  95 

And,  like  Jonah,  thinketh  songs 
In  the  belly  of  the  wood. 

Ha!  We  savage  boys  loved  blindly 
Old  Big  Hill,  a  monster  kindly, 
With  the  stream-beast's  iron  ring 
Through  her  nostrils,  and  the  fling 
Of  the  Steam-Chimaera's  sprays 
For  her  spouting  and  her  roar, 
When  we  teased  her  with  our  oar, 
Or  our  friendships  dared  explore 
The  stiller  deeps  of  Hillside  ways! 

Now  less  blindly  rush  her  lovers; 
Science  sends  her  Maenad  rovers 
Rooting  violet  and  aster, 
Chasing  butterflies  or  faster 
Jays  and  orioles  of  the  hill; 

Or,  more  slow,  to  bring  to  light 
The  lost  limestone  trilobite, 
Emphasizing  History's  height 
By  the  sandstone  lower  still. 

Light,  and  light,  and  light  enough, — 
'Tis  the  South!  whose  prairie-bluff 
Holds  upbuilded  in  the  sun 
One  cube  house,  and  only  one, 
Where  a  Bushnell's  lamp  was  burning 
When  the  other  stars  were  hid, 
And  the  student  tasks  he  did 
Flash  a  memory  amid 
Time's  advance  and  over-turning. 

For  his  St.  Stylites-tower 
Sent  him  punctual  to  the  hour 
Of  the  college  week  by  week, 
Till  the  fords  of  Turtle  Creek 
Timed  the  crossings  of  the  sage 
Over  to  the  busy  town, 
Where  he  wore  no  scholar's  gown, 
Though  his  gracious  life  trailed  down 
Wisdom  on  a  bustling  age. 

So  the  South  Horizon  lies 

With  its  monument  to  the  wise; — 


96  Ode— The  Four  Horizons. 

Dazed  the  gazer  half  forgets 
How  a  sphinx-like  City  frets 
Quite  beyond  the  corn-crop  tips, 
For  we  know  he  who  receives 
All  the  golden  gifts  she  gives, 
And  in  simpler  earnest-lives, 
Wins  her  riddle  from  her  lips. 

Light  and  dark,— or  light  again: 
'Tie  the  West,  but  Indian  men 
Never  could  have  seen  or  guessed 
What  has  come  across  the  West! 
There  they  merely  read  the  weather, 
Or  made  childlike  dreams  of  Heaven 
Where  some  blackest  rain-cloud  riven 
Showed  resplendent  ladders  given 
To  bind  earth  and  sky  together. 

What  has  come  across  the  West? 
Now  its  level  sky-line  crest 
Feels  the  notch  of  spire  and  steeple 
Where  Beloit's  working-people 

Mid  their  churches  and  their  schools 
Tend,  like  priests,  the  foundry  fire, 
Build  the  factory  chimney  higher, 
As  their  hearts  and  hands  aspire 
To  the  music  of  their  tools. 

From  the  West  the  tonic  hum 
Of  the  thousand  wheels  shall  come 
Hot  across  the  student's  thought; 
And  the  lesion  he  is  taught 
Is  that  life  is  live  forever; 
So  across  his  quiet  book- 
He  shall  set  his  earnest  look 
On  the  course  the  West  Star  took 
Unto  broadening  and  endeavor. 

Mid  the  sweep  of  endless  knowledge 
All  the  lifetime  of  our  College 
For  the  half  an  hundred  years 
But  an  infancy  appears, 
Cradled  in  the  nurse-embrace 
Of  the  four  horizons'  arms, 


Theodore  Lyman  Wright,  97 

Where  the  common  shops  and  farms 
Sunder  us  from  the  alarms 
Of  the  depth  and  doom  of  space. 

For  the  pathways  to  the  sky 
Are  the  trodden  roads  that  lie 
To  the  usual  hills  that  bound  us, 
Whence  quick  Youth  come  down  around  us 
With  a  passion  on  their  lips. 
Thither  too  they  pass  again, 
Boys  made  magically  men 
By  Beloit's  own  touch  and  then 
Siezing  their  apostleships. 

North  and  South  and  East  and  West, — 
Every  dusty  road  is  blessed 
By  the  treading  of  their  feet 
And  their  voices  that  repeat 
Faith  and  Science  with  the  sound 
Of  the  old  time  campus-cheers, 
Till,  like  ships,  each  disappears, 
On  the  Ocean  of  the  years — 
Gone  to  prove  God's  earth  is  round. 

And  whenever  they  sail  in 
From  the  voyages  they  have  been 
To  the  harbor  jubilee  ; 
The  Horizons  still  they  see 
Holding  old  Beloit  as  true 
As  she  has  been  from  her  birth 
To  the  love  of  sky  and  earth, 
Testing  all  her  scholar-worth 
By  the  world-work  she  can  do. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  BELOIT. 


HORACE  WHITE,  LL.  D.,  CLASS  OF  1853. 


By  the  favor  of  our  honored  President  I  am  permitted  to 
tell  you  something  of  the  beginnings  of  Beloit  ami  of  Beloit 
College,   most  of   which  I  saw  and   part  of  which  I  was. 
Yesterday  you  heard  of  the  day  of  small  things.     I  shall  tell 
you  of  the  day  of  smaller  things.     Through  the  kindness  of 
my  early  playmate  and  infant  school   mate,  Hon.  Ellery  B. 
Crane,  now  a  member  of  the  state  senate  of  Massachusetts 
and  a  resident  of  the  city  of  Worcester,  I  have  been  enabled 
to  examine  an  old  account  book,  hitherto  unpublished,  much 
of  which  is  in  my  father's   handwriting  and   the  rest   in  his 
father's    hand-writing.     This    book    contains   the    business 
transactions  of  the  New  England  Emigrating  Co.,  which  was 
formed  in   Colebrook,  New  Hampshire,  my  native  place,  in 
October,  183G,  and  of  which  Dr.  Horace  White,  my  father, 
was  the  agent.     Much  has  been   published  about  this  com- 
pany and  a  good  many  guesses  have  been  made  as  to  the  ex- 
act number  and   identity  of  the  members.      The  book  of 
which  I  speak,  and  which  Mr.  Crane   has  rescued  from  the 
tooth  of  time,  sets  at  rest  all  disputes  on  these  two  subjects. 
It  shows  that  the  company  consisted   of  fourteen    members 
and    that    their   names  were  Cyrus  Eames,  0.  P.  Bicknell, 
John  W.  Bicknell,  Asahel  B.  Howe,  Leonard  Hatch,  David 
J.  Bundy,  Ira  Young,  L.  C.  Beech,  S.  GL  Colley,  G.  W.  Bick- 
nell, K.  P.  Crane,  Horace  Hobart,  Horace  White  and  Alfred 
Field.     The  book  shows  to  a  cent  how  much  each  man  con- 


Horace  White.  99 

tributed  to  the  funds  of  the  enterprise,  the  whole  amount 
being  $7,067.27,  and  how  the  lands  and  other  property  were 
distributed,  how  much  and  what  kind  of  work  each  one  did 
and  what  credits  he  received  for  the  work  done.  These 
fourteen  names  and  no  others  appear  and  reappear  as  co- 
partners in  the  enterprise,  although  others  are  found  in 
other  relations  to  it.  These  men  were  not  speculators. 
They  did  not  belong  to  the  roving  class.  They  had  no 
thought  of  taking  up  claims  on  public  land  and  selling  out 
to  somebody  else  at  a  higher  price.  They  intended  to  create 
an  agricultural  community  like  the  New  England  village 
from  which  they  sprang,  and  new  homes  like  the  old  ones 
which  they  still  loved.  They  were  the  kind  of  stuff  that 
enduring  communities  are  made  of,  as  this  fair  city  today 
attests. 

It  was  the  principal  duty  of  the  Company's  agent  to  select 
and  purchase  a  site  for  the  new  homes  of  the  Emigrating 
company.  In  pursuance  of  his  duties  as  such  agent,  my 
father  left  Colebrook  in  the  winter  of  1836-7  on  his  west- 
ward journey.  He  was  then  in  his  27th  year.  The  book 
says  that  he  was  to  receive  $100  per  month  and  all  of  his 
expenses,  and  that  the  Company  was  to  furnish  him  a  horse 
and  cutter.  With  this  conveyance  he  set  forth  as  soon  as 
there  was  a  good  fall  of  snow  and  drove  through  Canada, 
taking  that  route  for  the  reason  that  the  sleighing  was  bet- 
ter on  the  north  than  on  the  south  side  of  the  lakes.  He 
arrived  at  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  on  the  25th  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1837,  where  he  found  Mr.  R.  P.  Crane,  the  father  of 
Mr.  Ellery  Crane,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Company,  and 
who  had  started  westward  somewhat  earlier.  Mr.  Crane  had 
arrived  at  Detroit  by  steamer  from  Buffalo  in  company  with 
Otis  P.  Bicknell  and  they  had  set  out  to  make  the  rest  of  the 
journey  on  foot,  not  knowing  exactly  where  it  might  lead 
them,  but  keeping  in  the  track  of  the  general  emigration  of 
the  period.     Arriving  at  Ann  Arbor  Mr.  Crane  found  his 


10^  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

funds  exhausted  and  took  a  job  of  finishing  a  partlv-built 
house  at  that  place  for  which  he  received  the  sum  of  $100. 
It  was  here  that  my  father  overtook  and  passed  him,  tak- 
ing Mr.  Bicknell  in  his  cutter  as  far  as  Calumet,  Illinois. 
Mr.  Crane  was  one  of  those  benefactors  of  the  human  race 
who  -keep  a  diary  "  and  it  is  fortunate  for  us  that  the  his- 
torical spirit  has  descended  to  his  son.  From  this  diary  his 
son  gives  me  the  following  extract: 

"On  reaching  Rockford,  March  3,  1837,  Dr.  White  was 
there,  stopping  with  Harvey  Buudy,  who  was  employed  as 
clerk  by  George  Goodhue,  who  was  proprietor  of  a  small 
store  or  trading  post.  The  doctor  had  been  up  to  the  Turtle 
but  had  not  purchased  yet.  Had  already  been  to  Des 
Moines,  la,  and  Quincy,  111,  but  did  not  like  it  there  The 
doctor  wanted  Otis  and  myself  to  see  the  location  at  the 
Turtle  before  deciding,  although  he  thought  well  of  it.  We 
(Otis  and  I)  arrived  at  the  Turtle  Thursday,  March  9,  and 
Dr.  White  came  up  the  week  following  and  we  three  went 
out  three  miles  northeast  to  see  the  landscape.  We  liked  it 
so  well  that  we  (Otis  and  I)  encouraged  the  doctor  to  secure 
an  interest  here  if  he  could." 

This  was  on  the  13th  day  of  March.  The  only  person 
here  at  the  time  who  could  be  called  a  settler  was  Caleb 
Blodgett  who  bad  arrived  the  previous  year  and  had  bought 
for  $200  a  claim  from  a  Frenchman  named  Thibault  who 
was  living  with  one  or  more  squaw  wives  in  a  construction 
of  logs  near  the  junction  of  Turtle  creek  and  Rock  river.  A 
bargain  was  struck  with  Blodgett  on  the  following  day 
( March  14)  for  one-third  of  his  claim.  In  those  days  claims 
to  public  land  were  rather  indefinite.  That  of  Blodgett  was 
as  far-reaching  as  those  which  excited  the  ire  of  the  elder 
Gracchus  in  old  Roman  days.  His  own  idea  was  that  it  em- 
braced about  7,000  acres.  Purchasers  of  claims  took  their 
chances  of  being  able  to  hold  what  they  had  bargained  for. 
What  was  paid  for  in  such  a  case  was  the  chance  that  the 


Horace  White.  101 

government  land  office  would  eventually  recognize  the  claim 
as  valid  under  the  pre-emption  laws,  and  give  a  patent  for 
it,  on  receiving  the  price  of  $1.25  per  acre.  A  bargain  was 
struck  with  Blodgett  for  one-third  of  his  claim  for  the  sum 
of  $2,500,  and  patents  were  issued  in  my  father's  name 
which  are  now  in  my  possession.  This  included  100  acres 
of  land  already  under  the  plow  and  ready  for  a  crop,  this 
fact  being  a  moving  corsideration  in  the  purchase.  Blod- 
gett retained  one-third  of  the  claim  for  himself  and  sold  the 
remaining  third  to  Messrs.  Goodhue,  Jones  and  Johnson. 
The  name  of  Goodhue  is  an  honored  one  in  the  history  of 
Beloit.  Mr.  Goodhue  came  from  Canada.  He  erected  the 
first  saw  mill  in  the  place.  He  was  living  at  that  time  in 
Rockford  but  the  mill  was  already  under  construction  and 
it  began  to  deliver  boards  on  the  15th  of  April,  1837. 

Dr.  White  returned  to  Colebrook  immediately  after  the 
purchase  was  made  from  Blodgett,  to  report  progress  and  to 
dispose  of  his  own  property,  leaving  Crane  and  Bicknell  in 
charge.  Blodgett  had  built  a  double  log  house  on  the  river 
bank  near  the  foot  of  Broad  street.  In  putting  the  logs  in 
place  he  had  been  assisted  by  a  band  of  Indians  who  were 
encamped  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  under  charge  of  army 
officers.  Until  the  saw  mill  was  completed,  so  that  boards 
could  be  obtained,  the  ground  served  as  the  floor  of  this 
house.  My  earliest  recollections  of  Beloit,  or  of  anything, 
are  associated  with  this  old  log  house,  in  which  Dr.  White's 
family  was  installed  and  where  they  lived  until  better  ac- 
commodations could  be  provided.  This  was  a  double  house 
with  a  door  in  the  center  and  was  generally  occupied  by  two 
families  or  more.  The  south  end,  which  we  occupied,  con- 
sisted of  one  square  room  which  served  as  kitchen,  dining- 
room,  bed-room,  sitting-room  and  doctor's  office.  The  joints 
in  this  establishment  had  not  been  very  carefully  closed  and 
hence  it  was  not  unusual  in  the  winter  time  for  my  parents 
to  find  themselves  in  the  morning  under  an  extra  counter- 


102  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

pane  of  snow  which  had  sifted  through  the  crevices  during 
the  night.  There  were  no  streets  in  the  place,  only  Indian 
trails  through  the  woods  and  one  road  leading  from  Rock- 
ford  and  following  the  general  line  of  Rock  river  from 
south  to  north. 

I  have  a  letter  written  by  my  father  dated  Colebrook,  May 
10,  1837,  to  my  mother,  who  was  then  in  Bedford,  N.  H.,  in 
which  he  says  that  he  found  the  Emigrating  Company  in 
good  spirits.  "I  had  requested  them,"  he  says,  "  to  raise 
fourteen  hundred  dollars  on  my  return  and  it  was  done." 
He  then  gives  the  names  of  a  number  of  persons  who  would 
start  westward  within  a  few  weeks,  some  being  members  of 
the  company  and  some  not.  He  said  that  James  Cass  and 
wife  would  go  out  in  his  employ.  This  fact  explains  some 
of  the  entries  in  the  old  account  book  where  Dr.  White  re- 
ceives credit  for  labor  performed  by  Cass  for  the  company's 
benefit.  Manv  of  these  entries  possess  an  economical  in- 
terest showing  how  society  may  get  on  without  money  in 
case  of  need.  Thus  we  read  under  date  of  November  7, 1837 : 
u  Otis  P.  Bicknell,  Cr. 

"  By  1  day  getting  flour  and  assisting  in  butchering  ox." 
As  a  sequence,  two  days  later  we  find  Horace  Ho bart  cred- 
ited withuone  half  day  salting  beef "  and  Horace  White 
credited  with  the  services  of  Cass  in  hauling  beef  and  also 
"some  pumpkins."  A.  L.  Field  is  'credited  with  three- 
fourths  of  a  day  '  at  business  of  different  kinds  for  Co." 
There  are  several  entries  in  November,  1837,  where  Horace 
White  is  credited  with  "  1  day  each  for  Crosby,  Cass  and 
Grimes  on  bridge  over  Turtle."  The  explanation  is  that 
Crosby  and  Grimes  were  indebted  to  Dr.  White  and  that 
they  worked  out  the  debt  in  the  company's  service  for  which 
he  received  credit  in  the  final  settlement.  The  current  rate 
of  interest  is  shown  in  an  entry  in  December,  1837,  where 
Horace  White  is  credited  with  $15  cash  paid  to  B.  J.  Tenney 
for  the  company,  u  interest  12  per  cent."     The  usual  rate  of 


Horace  White.  103 

interest  when  I  became  old  enough  to  understand  such 
things  was  12  per  cent.,  and  I  think  that  it  was  not  less  than 
10  per  cent,  at  any  time  when  I  lived  here. 

One  more  entry  in  this  old  account  book  deserves  notice. 
Among  the  crops  produced  on  the  land  broken  up  by  Blod- 
gett  and  included  in  the  company's  purchase,  was  200  bush- 
els of  oats.  This  was  divided  among  the  members  of  the 
company  in  exact  proportion  to  their  interest  in  it,  the  name 
of  each  one  being  set  down  opposite  his  share  of  the  crop  in 
bushels  and  pounds. 

It  should  be  added  that  there  is  no  indication  in  the  book 
or  in  any  letter  or  memorandum,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  discover,  that  there  ever  was  any  dispute  or  disagreement 
among  the  members  of  the'  company  touching  money  mat- 
ters or  the  eventual  settlement  of  the  joint  enterprise.  Each 
one  had  entire  confidence  in  the  good  faith  of  the  others  and 
in  the  correctness  of  the  bookkeeing. 

The  hardships  of  this  early  period  can  be  little  under- 
stood by  those  of  the  present  day.  We  read  in  the  early 
records  that  during  the  first  year  our  pioneers  were  often  in 
want  of  food,  and  that  the  arrival  of  Alfred  Field  in  July, 
1837,  with  a  team  of  four  oxen  and  a  load  of  four  barrels  of 
flour' relieved  them  from  severe  distress.  Also  that  on  an- 
other occasion  when  the  stock  of  provisions  had  run  low 
they  heard  of  a  whole  barrel  of  pork  for  sale  at  Rockford 
and  sent  one  of  their  number  down  there  to  buy  it.  The 
streams  furnished  a  plentiful  supply  of  fish  and  when  Good- 
hue's mill  was  completed  the  flume  was  converted  into  a 
kind  of  trap  by  means  of  which  the  water  could  be  drained 
off  and  the  fish  picked  up  on  the  bottom,  but  the  fish  could 
not  be  rendered  palatable  without  some  accessories,  and 
these  were  frequently  wanting.  The  hardships  of  travel  m 
those  days  were  almost  beyond  conception.  Some  ot  these 
are  within  my  own  recollection.  It  was  customary  for  the 
stage  drivers  to  carry   rails  with  which  to  pry  the  coaches 


104  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

out  of  the  mud  when  the  horses  could  no  longer  draw  their 
loads.  In  this  exercise  the  passengers  were  expected  to  take 
part  under  pain  of  stopping  for  an  indefinite  time  in  some 
unfathomed  bog.  When  a  man  driving  his  team  alone  was 
stuck  fast  in  this  way  he  must  either  wait  till  somebody  else 
came  along  to  pull  him  through,  or  take  out  his  load  by 
piecemeal  and  carry  it  on  his  back  to  dry  land  so  that  his 
horses  might  draw  out  the  empty  wagon.  I  have  witnessed 
many  cases  of  both  kinds  and  have  participated  in  some. 

A  sadder  case  is  one  for  the  details  of  which  I  am  indebted 
to  my  friend,  Mr.  Crane.     It  is  that  of  an  emigrating  party 
from  Colebrook  who  left  the  steamboat  at  Detroit  and  started 
to  cross  the  state  of  Michigan  with   a  team   of  four  horses. 
I  he  roads  were  so  bad  that  one  of  the  horses  died  of  fatigue 
before  they  had  made  half  of  the  distance.     Soon  afterward 
another  horse  was  so  exhausted  that  he  could  not  pull      It 
was  necessary  to  lead  him   by  a  rope.     Then  they  came  to 
the  sand  hills  at  the  southern  bend  of  Lake  Michigan  and  it 
became  necessary  to  lighten  the  load   in  every  possible  way 
for  there  was  danger  that   the  other  horses  would  fail,  or 
perhaps  die  in    the  road.     Delicate  women   were  obliged  to 
get  out  and  walk   in  the  sand  carrying  infant  children  on 
their  backs.     It  was  impossible  to  stop  on  the  road.     Houses 
were  ten  to  twenty  miles  apart.     Shelter  and  food  for  man 
and  beast  must  be  found  every  night.     While  these  toilers 
were  trudging  through  the  sand  darkness  overtook  them 
accompanied  by  rain.     There  was  nothing   to  do   but  push 
on.     Continuous   movement   was   the  price  of  life      With 
eyes  straining  to  see  a  light  they  toiled   on   fainting  with 
hunger   and    fatigue    and  drenched    with    rain.      About   9 
o'clock  their  hearts  were  gladdened   by  a  distant  twinkling 
light.     They  hastened  to  reach  it.     They  found  it  a  short 
distance  from  the  road.     It  was  an  Indian  wigwam.     The 
occupants    were   very  civil.      They  invited  these  foot-sore 
travelers  to  the  shelter  of  their  lodge,  but  it  was  so  filthv 


Horace  White.  105 

that  the  pilgrims,  weary  as  they  were,  could  not  bring  them- 
selves to  enter  it.     So  they  turned  back  to  the  lonely  road 
and   resumed  their   journey,  for   near  three  hours  longer. 
Midnight  brought  them  to  a  house  in  a  condition  of  mind 
and  body  that  can  be  better  imagined  than  described.     One 
of  these  women,  whose  trembling  limbs   had  at  last  borne 
her  to  a  door,  was  Mrs.  Crane,  and  the  babe  whom  she  car- 
ried was  my  friend  Ellery  Crane,  who  has  given  me  these 
facts.     They  reached  their  journey's  end  in  August,  1837.    I 
would  fain  believe  that  these  hardships  have  been  exagger- 
ated  by  the  distortions  of  time  and  the  imperfections  of 
memory,  but  as  they  were  written  down  at,  or  very  near,  the 
date  of  their  occurrence,  they  must  be  accepted  as  a  round 
unvarnished   tale.     Mrs.    Crane   never   recovered  from  the 
effects   of   that   terrible   journey.     Her  health  was   under- 
mined by  it.     She  lingered  a  few  years  and  died  at  the  age 

of  33.  .      l.  „ 

There  was  another  branch  of  the  early  emigration  to  be- 
loit   to    which  I  think  that  Dr.  Horace  White  must  have 
given  the  impulse.     It  came  from  Bedford,  a  town  in  the 
extreme  southern  part  of  New  Hampshire,  Colebrook  being 
in  the  extreme  northern  part.     Among  the  families  repre- 
sented in  this  emigration  were  those  of  Colley,  Riddle,  Dole, 
Atwood,  Houston  and  Gordon.     My  mother  was  a  native  ot 
Bedford      As  the  movement  originated  in  Colebrook  and  as 
our  family  was  the  only  connecting  link  between  the  two 
towns,  which  were  separated  from  each  other  by  the  whole 
length  of  the  state,  I  conclude  that  the  Bedford  people  took 
the  Beloit  fever  from  us  and  that  S.  G.  Colley  was  enrolled 
as  an  original  member  of   the  New  England  Emigrating 
Companv  at  my  father's  instance,  and  that  the  others  were 
similarly  induced  to  come  later.     However  that  may  be  it  is 
certain  that  my  mother  with  her  two  sons,  aged  3  and  1  re- 
spectively, came  hither  from  Bedford,  in  company  with  Mr. 
Colley  and  his  family,  and  Mrs.  Atwood  and  her  daughter, 


106  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

in  the  summer  of  1838,  arriving  here  on  the  25th  of  June  of 
that  year.  My  father  had  returned  to  Beloit  in  November, 
1M7,  but  did  not  bring  his  family  because  there  was  then 
no  place  to  put  them.  There  were  only  three  log  houses  in 
the  town  in  1837  and  those  were  all  occupied  by  the  male 
workers  who  were  preparing  the  ground  for  their  wives  and 
children.  In  1837  Caleb  Blodgett  erected  a  house  of  boards, 
the  product  of  Goodhue's  mill.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  Rock  River  House,  situated  where  the  Goodwin  House 
now  stands.  The  fact  of  immediate  interest  to  the  White 
family  was  that  when  Blodgett  moved  out  of  the  old  log 
house  they  were  enabled  to  move  in. 

Such  were  the  beginnings  of  Beloit  as  a  home  of  civilized 
men  and  women.     How  it  became  a  center  of  educational 
work  in  the  West  is  an  oft-told  tale.     It  has  been  related  by 
others  better  than  I  can  tell  it.     Yet  I  must  not  omit  my 
share  of  it  on  this  memorable  day.     The  first   application 
made  by  this  infant  community  to  the  legislative  power  for 
any  purpose  whatever  was  a  petition  for  a  charter  for  a  semi- 
nary of  learning.     On  the  11th  of  November,  1837,  Major 
Charles  Johnson  and  Cyrus  Eames  started  to  Burlington 
Iowa,  the   then  seat  of  the  territorial  government  of  the 
country  now  embraced  in  Wisconsin,  Iowa  and  Minnesota, 
to  obtain  such   a  charter.     They  were  successful,  and  the 
return   to    Beloit   on  December  5   of   the    same   year.      It 
is  needless  to  say  that  Beloit  Seminary  did  not  spring  into 
immediate  activity.      Divers  and  sundry  schools,  both  public 
and  private,  preceded  it.     According  to  the  best  information 
obtainable  the  first  school  of  any  kind  in  Beloit  was  opened 
in  the  kitchen  of  Caleb  Blodgett's  house  in   the  year  1838, 
the   teacher   being   John    Burroughs,  a    native  of   Orange 
county,  N.  Y.     In  the  following  year  a  school  house  was 
built   by  private   subscription   at   the   northeast  corner  of 
School  and  Prospect  streets  and  here  the  first  public  school 
was  opened,  under  the  charge  of  Hazen  Cheney  who  taught 


Horace  White.  107 

during  the  school  year  1839-40.     He  was  followed  by  Hiram 
Hersey,  Alfred  Walker,  Henry  Brown  and  Samuel  Clary  in 
successiou.     In  1843  or  1844   a  school  was  started  in  the 
basement  of  the  Congregational  Church.    This  building  had 
been  erected  in  1842  mainly  by  my  father's  efforts.     As  the 
Rev.  Lucien  D.  Mears  has  said,  "It  was  built  with  unpaid 
doctor's   bills,1'    which  means  that  some  people   hereabout 
could  not  pay  for  Dr.  White's  services  with  money  but  could 
pay  with  stone,  timber,  sand,  lime  and  the  labor  of  their 
hands  and  teams.     That  Dr.  White  was  eventually  paid  by 
the  other  members  of  the  congregation  there   can  be   no 
doubt,  since  these  men  were  not  in  the  habit  of  getting  any- 
thing of  value  for  nothing,  least  of  all  their  church  privil- 
eges, the  most  valuable  of  all  things  to  them.     One  of  the 
early  services  held  in  this  church  was  my  father's  funeral. 
He  died  December  23,  1843.     The  hardships  of  a  country 
doctor's  life  in  a  thinly  settled  region,  where  he  was  com- 
pelled to  drive  long  distances  by  day  and  night  in  a  rigorous 
climate,  with  little  protection  against  the  cold,  cut  him  off 
at  the  age  of  33.     He  was  a  native  of  Bethlehem,  N.  H.,  a 
graduate  of  the  medical  department  of  Dartmouth  College, 
a  man  of  intellectual  power  and  heroic  mould.     He  shrank 
from  no  duties  and  I  am  sure  that  no  man  ever  performed 
greater  services  and  sacrifices  for  Beloit  than  he. 
3  The  school  in  the  basement  of  this  church,  situated  at  the 
corner  of  Broad  and  Prospect  streets,  was  opened  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Rev.  Lewis  H.  Loss.     This  was  the  Beloit 
Seminary  for  which  Johnson  and  Eames  obtained  the  char- 
ter in  1837.     I  was  one  of  Mr.  Loss's  pupils. 

My  earliest  recollections  of  school  days,  however,  are  not 
these.  They  cluster  about  an  infant  school  on  Race  street 
near  the  corner  of  State,  kept  by  Miss  Jane  Moore,  my 
mother's  sister.  She  was  "Aunt  Jane  Moore"  to  all  the 
young  people  in  the  town.  From  this  I  was  transferred  to 
the  public  school  before  mentioned  and  in  due  time  to  the 


108  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

tutelage  of  Mr.  Loss.  The  latter  had  for  an  assistant  Mr. 
D.  Carley.  Mr.  Loss  was  succeeded  in  1846  by  my  dear 
friend  Sereno  T.  Merrill  who  is  with  us  still,  after  more  than 
fifty  years  of  continuous  activity  and  usefulness  in  Beloit. 

Before  the  College  proper  began  there  were  various  teach- 
ers here,  both  male  aud  female,  whose  names  deserve  respect- 
ful mention  although  I  do  not  remember  exactly  where  all 
of  them  taught,  viz:     Sarah  T.  Crane,   Frances  Burchard, 
Emehne  Fisher,  Philomela  Atwood,  Eliza  Field,  M.  F.  Cut- 
ting, Alexander  Stone,  Daniel  Pinkham,  Leonard  Humphrey 
Mrs.  Saxby,  Mrs.  Dearborn,    Mrs.  Carr,  Cornelia  Bradley' 
Miss  Adaline  Merrill,  Jonathan  Moore,  Ackland  Jones  and 
Horatio  C.  Burchard.     The  last  named  has  since  been  a  mem- 
ber of  congress  and  director  of  the  mint  of  the  United  States 
Miss  Bradley  become  the  wife  of  Judge  Hopkins,  of  Madi- 
son, Wis,  and  Miss  Merrill  the  wife  of  Dr.  Browne  of  Hart- 
ford, Conn.     After  the  death  of  Mary  Kimball  Merrill,  the 
able  principal  of   the   young  ladies'  department  of   Beloit 
Seminary,  Miss  Jane  Blodgett,  (now  Mrs.  S.  T.  Merrill)  and 
Miss  Clarinda  Hall  had  charge  of  a  young  ladies'  school  on 
Broad  street,  in  a  building  which  was  afterward  moved  to 
State  street  and  became  the  book  store  of  Wright  &  Merrill- 
Miss  Chapin  (now  the  wife  of  Prof.  Porter)  taught  in  this 
school  in  1853. 

Mr.  Humphrey  was  the  son  of  the  first  rector  of  the  Epis- 
copal church  in  Beloit,  and  succeeded  his  father  in  that  ca- 
pacity. Miss  Fisher,  a  woman  of  great  energy  and  execu- 
tive talent,  became  the  housekeeper  of  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel  in  New  York.  All,  so  far  as  I  know,  whether  rich  or 
poor,  high  or  humble,  were  honest,  earnest  men  and  women, 
doing  good  and  not  evil  in  their  day  and  generation.  Happy 
shall  we  be  if  the  same  can  be  said  of  us  when  our  fleeting 
hour  is  past. 

Under  Mr.  Merrill's  tuition  I  began  the  study  of  algebra 
and  of  Latin  and  Greek.     In  1845   my  mother  married  Mr. 


Horace  White.  109 

Samuel  Hinman,  of  Waukesha,  Wis.,  one  of  the  best  men 
that  ever  lived,  and  we  went  to  his  farm  near  that  village 
where  we  remained  a  year  or  two.     His  election  as  superin- 
tendent  of   the   first   building   erected   for   Beloit  College 
brought  us  back  here  in  the  spring  of   1847.     This  was  the 
year  in  which  the  first  freshman  class  was  formed,  the  year 
in  which  the  corner  stone  of  Middle   College  was  laid,  and 
whose  fiftieth  anniversary  we  now  celebrate.     How  this  in- 
fant  college   was   conceived   and   established,  how   it   was 
prayed  over  and  labored  for,  I  could  not  tell  you  in  the  brief 
time  allotted  to  me;  nor  is  it  needful  that  I  should  since  it 
is  told  in  Professor   BushneH's  address   at   the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  and  in  the  discourses  you  heard  yesterday.    Some 
few  reminiscences  of  my  own  must  suffice  for  this  occasion. 
I  remember  the  time  when  the  five  young  men  constitut- 
ing the  first  freshman  class  studied  alongside  of  us  younger 
ones  in  the  old   basement,  under  Mr.  Merrill,  who  was  act- 
ing president  and  professor  of  all  departments  in  Beloit  Col- 
lege until  the  advent  of  Professors   Bushnell  and  Emerson 
in  the  month  of  May,  1848.     I  remember  the  coming  of 
those  two  seers  of  Israel  and  the  laying  of  the  corner  stone 
aforesaid.     The  college  building  was  in  course  of  construc- 
tion a  long  time  and  the  five  freshmen  (grown  to  be  sopho- 
mores) recited  their  lessons  in  a  room  of  Lucius  G.  Fisher's 
house  down  on  the  river  bank.     It  was  a  severe  struggle  on 
all  hands  to  get  that  college  building  under  a  roof.     We 
children,  (that  is,  the  Hinman  children  and  the  White  child- 
ren), had  these  troubles  served  up  to  us  daily  because  Deacon 
Hinman   had  charge  of  the  work,  for  which  he  received  a 
salary  of  $500  per  year;  and  this  was  all  that  a  family  of  ten 
had  to  live  on.     We  thought  we  lived  pretty  well,  however. 
We  produced  our  own  vegetables,  and  poultry,  our  own 
pork,  and  milk  and  butter.     The  cows  grazed  freely  on  the 
open  prairie  round  about,  and  were  lured  homeward  by  an 
enticement  of  bran  at  the  close  of  each  day.     We  had  a 


110  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

wood  lot  which  supplied  our  fuel  and  I  cut  down  the  trees. 
Tea  and  coffee  were  unknown  luxuries  to  us,  but  we  were  as 
well  off  in  this  respect  as   Croesus   was.     Sugar   was   scarce 
but  we  had  more  of  it  than  Julius  Caesar  had.     There  was 
abundance  of  fish  in  the  streams,  and  of  game  in  the  woods 
and  fields.     Prairie  chickens,  wild  pigeons,  wild  ducks  and 
wild  geese  were  to  be  had  in  the  greatest  profusion  during 
their  season,  together  with  an  occasional  deer  and  an  occa- 
sional bear.     During  my  senior  year  in  college  (1853)  it  was 
not  an  uncommon  occurrence  to  find  a  flock  of  quails  in  our 
door  yard  picking  up  crumbs  in  competition  with  the  chick- 
ens.    Blackberries,  strawberries,   wild  plums,   wild  grapes, 
hickory  nuts,  hazel  nuts  and  black  walnuts  were  to  be  had 
for  the  trouble  of  gathering  them,  and  as  for  wild  flowers  T 
cannot  begin  to  tell  you  how  the  prairies,  the  woods  and  the 
river  banks  glowed  with   them.     The  habitat  of  many   of 
these  flowers  extended  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
on  the  west  and  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Saskatchewan  on 
the  north,  as  I  discovered  a  few  years  since  while  making  a 
journey  to  the  Pacific  coast  by  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway. 
So  you  see  that  a  salary  of  $500  for  a  family  of  ten,  plus 
the  bounties  of  nature  and  our  own  industry  was  not  a  nig- 
gardly allowance.     Yet  I   fancy  that  the  salaries  offered  to 
Professors  Bushnell  and  Emerson  of  $600  per  year,  coupled 
with  the  proviso,  "if  we  can  raise  it,1'  did  not  constitute  the 
moving  consideration  with  them.     Ah,  those  noble  minded, 
high   principled    men!     What   can    I  say  in  their  praise? 
What  can  I  not  say,  of  them  and  of  those  who  came  a  little 
later,  President  Chapin,  Professor  Lathrop,  Professor  Porter? 
These  five  constituted  the  faculty  during  my  under-gradnate 
course.     Two  of  them  still  live,  thank  God,  to  see  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  institution  to  which  they  gave  their  lives. 
Professor  Porter,  according  to  my  recollection,  came  hither 
a  victim  of  consumption,  and  was  not  expected  to  live  more 
than  three  years.     If  Beloit  were  as  good  for  all  invalids  as 


Horace   White.  HI 

it  has  been  for  him,  it  would  be  the  most  popular  health  re- 
sort in  the  United  States. 

To  the  high  qualities  of  President  Chapin  I  paid  my  feeble 
tribute  on  the  occasion  of  his  memorial  exercises  four  years 
ago.  I,  and  the  class  of  five  to  which  I  belonged,  were 
brought  more  closely  in  contact  with  Professors  Bushnell 
and  Emerson  than  with  any  others — Professor  Porter  did 
not  arrive  here  until  my  junior  year.  These  two  men  were 
the  chief  part  of  the  college  to  me;  and  more  especially  Pro- 
fessor Emerson  since  Professor  Bushnell  was  charged  with 
duties  regarding  the  financial  affairs  of  the  institution  that 
consumed  much  of  his  time  when  he  was  not  actually  in  the 
class-room.  Nevertheless  his  presence  was  an  inspiration  in 
the  fact  that  he  combined  first-rate  mathematical  instruc- 
tion with  first-rate  business  training.  He  was  the  scholar, 
and  the  man  of  affairs,  and  the  genial  Christian  gentleman, 
all  at  once.  Really  I  do  not  see  how  Beloit  College  could 
have  struggled  along  without  him  during  the  first  quarter 
century  of  its  existence. 

I  would  not  venture  to  say  in  the  presence  of  Professor 
Emerson  all  that  I  feel  of  reverence  and  affection  for  him. 
One  incident,  however,  I  will  recall  which  no  doubt  he  has 
forgotten.  One  day,  when  we  both  had  some  leisure,  (per- 
haps it  was  during  a  vacation),  I  had  taken  my  place  on  the 
Rock  River  dam  for  an  afternoon's  fishing,  and  the  professor 
was  out  for  a  walk.  He  spied  me  in  my  retreat,  approached 
and  took  a  seat  by  my  side  apparently  taking  an  interest  in 
the  fish.  We  fell  into  a  conversation,  a  kind  of  Socratic  dia- 
logue, in  which  he  did  most  of  the  talking.  Gradually  I 
found  myself  becoming  very  much  interested.  The  theme 
of  the  discourse  was  the  supreme  importance  of  character  in 
all  the  affairs  of  life,  but  it  did  not  come  to  me  in  a  didactic 
way.  It  was  no  new  theme  to  me.  I  had  heard  it  in  ser- 
mons and  had  read  it  in  books  ever  since  I  was  old  enough 
to  understand  anything.     Yet  somehow  it  seemed  as  though 


112  The  Beginnings  of  Beloit. 

I  had  never  heard  it  before.  It  took  possession  of  me  in  an 
unpremeditated  way.  It  held  me  fast  for  an  hour  or  more. 
It  has  held  me  fast  ever  since.  At  the  end  of  the  hour  my 
fishing  pole  and  line  had  disappeared  and  I  had  never  missed 
them. 

This  incident,  my  friends,  is  typical  of  the  college  life  that 
I  knew.  It  was  a  life  in  which  students  and  professors  were 
thrown  together  not  merely  as  instructors  and  learners  but 
as  friends  and  companions.  Such  association  is  only  possi- 
ble in  those  institutions  where  the  proportion  of  students  to 
professors  is  relatively  email.  Os  course  we  all  desire  that 
Beloit  College  shall  grow  in  numbers.  We  rejoice  at  such 
growth  in  recent  years,  yet  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the 
small  college,  the  kind  that  I  knew.  I  do  not  think  that  I 
should  have  received  so  good  an  education  at  Yale  as  I  did  at 
Beloit,  for  two  reasons.  I  should  not  have  been  personally 
drilled  in  my  studies  there  as  I  was  here.  Time  and  num- 
bers would  not  have  permitted.  I  should  not  have  had  the 
daily  uplifting  personal  intercourse  with  the  professors  there 
that  I  had  here.  Crowding  would  have  prevented  that  also. 
So  you  see.  the  place  for  the  small  college  exists.  I  should 
rather  say  that  the  necessity  for  it  exists  and  increases  with 
the  country's  growth.  Many,  very  many,  young  men,  and 
I  am  glad  to  say  young  women  also,  get  an  education  in  the 
small  colleges  that  they  could  never  obtain  in  any  other 
way.  If  the  college  were  not  close  at  hand  they  could  never 
find  it.  If  it  were  not  cheap  in  a  pecuniary  sense  it  would 
be  beyond  their  means.  Beloit  has  never  been  cheap  in  any 
other  sense.  Her  standards  of  scholarship  and  of  manliness 
have  always  been  of  the  highest  and  her  influence  has  been 
felt  in  all  lands.  So  it  must  have  been  when  we  think  of 
the  men  who  laid  its  foundations  fifty  years  ago.  So  it 
must  continue  to  be  when  we  think  of  those  who  guide  its 
destinies  today. 


At  the  close  of  the  commencement  exercises  Dr.  D.  K. 
Pearsons,  whose  steadfast  and  generous  friendship  has  been 
the  source  of  so  much  inspiration  and  the  means  of  so  large 
a  part  of  the  material  development  of  the  College  during  the 
past  eight  years,  was  requested  to  address  the  audience.     He 
was   received   with  great  enthusiasm,  and  spoke  with  elo- 
quence and  deep  feeling  of  the  motives  which  had  led  him 
to  make  his  gifts  to  the  College,  whose  very  beginnings  he 
had  watched  with  vouthful  interest,  and  in  whose  future  he 
feels  strong  confidence.      He   concluded   by   crowning  the 
half-century  with    another  royal   gift,-  the  promise  of  a 
beautiful  and  complete  building  for  the  young  women  ot 
the  College,  to  be   commenced  at  once,   and  to  be   named 
-Emerson  Hair1  in  honor  of  the  revered  senior  member  ot 

the  faculty.  . 

The  governor  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Wisconsin  honor- 
ed the  commencement  with  his  presence.  Among  the  rep- 
resentatives of  other  institutions  of  learning  who  brought 
the  greeting  of  their  faculties  were  President  Fisk  of  the 
Chicago  Theological  Seminary;  Dean  Birge,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin;  Professors  Chamberlin  and £  Salisbury  of 
the  University  of  Chicago;  Professor  Fisk  of  the  North- 
western University;  Professor  Smith,  of  Lake  Forest  Uni- 
versity; Professor  Marsh,  of  Ripon  College;  and  Professor 
Lummis,  of  Lawrence  University.  Most  of  these  spoke  at 
the  commencement  dinner,  as  did  also  ex-Senator  W.  F 
Vilas  LL  D.,Rev.  Willard  Scott,  D.  D.,  Dr.  Pearsons  Mr. 
I  W  Kretzinger,  Mr.  C.  B.  Stowell,M,  S.  T.  Merrill,  Rev. 
W.  W.  Leete,  D.  D.,  and  Professor  Emerson. 


114 

Among:  the  letters  and  telegrams  of  congratulation,  the 
following  was  read: 

Yale  University,  New  Haven,  June  17,  1897. 
My  Dear  President  Eaton:— 

It  is  a  matter  of  much  regret  to  me  that  the  members  of  our  facul- 
ties and  myself  are  so  situated  at  this  time -this  being  the  busiest 
time  of  the  year— that  we  are  unable  to  be  represented  at  your  fiftieth 
anniversary  at  Beloit.  The  relations  between  Yale  and  your  College 
in  the  beginning  and  the  early  history  of  your  institution  were  so 
close  that  we  have  always  looked  upon  you  as  peculiarly  near  to  us. 
And  from  the  early  days  uutil  now  the  most  friendly  sentiment  has 
existed  on  your  part  towards  us,  and  on  our  part  towards  you.  We 
congratulate  you  on  the  arrival  of  this  most  interesting  anniversary. 
It  commemorates  most  fitly  and  happily  the  grand  work  which  your 
predecessors,  and  your  associates,  and  yourself  have  accomplished.  I 
trust  that  it  may  prove  to  be  the  opening  day  of  a  new  era  of  prosper- 
ity and  success  for  the  institution  for  which  you  have  all  done  so 
much,  and  which  you  all  love  so  sincerely. 

Your  list  of  professors  and  of  graduates  is  a  most  honorable  one.  I 
have  had  the  privilege  of  knowing  a  goodly  number  of  them,  and  I 
hold  them  in  the  highest  esteem.  If  I  could  be  with  you  on  the  23d,  I 
should  give  the  whole  company  of  your  assembled  alumni  the  hearti- 
est greeting,  as  from  a  Yale  brother,  and  should  try  to  show  you  how 
kindly  our  part  of  the  great  fraternity  of  scholars  feels  toward  your 
part  of  the  same  fraternity.  But,  as  I  cannot  be  with  you,  I  must  con- 
tent myself  with  a  brief  friendly  message  in  writing.  Let  my  written 
word,  however,  bear  to  you  the  friendly  congratulations  of  all  the  offic- 
ers of  our  University,  as  well  as  my  own. 

May  I  ask  you  to  present  my  kindest  personal  regards  to  my  old 
teacher,  of  my  undergraduate  days— Professor  Emerson  -and  to  ac- 
cept for  him  and  for  yourself  my  best  wishes  for  the  happiness  of 
years  to  come. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Timothy  Dwight. 


Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty 
1845=1897. 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES: 

Presidents— 

1845    *Iiev.  Aratus  Kent          .        . }°™ 

1850    *Rev.  Aaron  L.  Chapin,  D.  D„  LL.  D., l»»b 

1886      Rev.  Edward  D.  Eaton,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Vice-Presidents— 

1845    *Rev.  Stephen  Peet *{««(} 

1850    *Rev.  Aratus  Kent ^KXfi 

1870    *Rev.  Ruel  M.  Pearson     .        . J°°" 

1886    *Rev.  A.  L.  Chapin,  D.  D.,  LL.  1)., 18y4 

1892      Thomas  D.  Robertson 

Secretaries- 

1845    *Rev.  Dexter  Clary    . J&JJ 

1874      Rev.  Henry  P.  Higley,  D.  D 18yi 

1891      Charles  A.  Emerson 

Members—  ^  „fiq 

1845    *Rev.  Aratus  Kent *t«?5 

1845    *Rev.  Stephen  Peet    .       .                ....                ...  • 

1845    *Rev.  Dexter  Clary ■  J2 -q 

1845    *Rev.  Flavel  Bascom lg'50 

1845    *Rev.  Calvin  Waterbury *.87o 

1845    *Rev.  Jedediah  D   Stevens      •        . •  nm 

1845    *Rev.  Aaron  L.  Chapin,  D.  D.  ^L.  D 

1845    *Rev.  Ruel  M.  Pearson #lg36 

1845    *George  W.  Hickox 1851 

1845    *  Augustine  Raymond 1848 

1845    *Charles  M.  Goodsell J857 

1845    *Ephraim  H.  Potter *lhH6 

1845    *Lucius  G.  Fisher *1890 

1845    *Wait  Talcott     .                1847 

1845    *Charles  S.  Hempstead #lg6- 

1845    *Samuel  Hinman 

1848    *Horatio  Newhall,  M.  D 1858 

1848    *Eliphalet  Cramer     .        . 

1850  Rev.  George  S.  F.  Savage,  D.  D 1858 

1851  *Rev.  Harvey  Curtis,  D.  D *lg60 

1851    *Rev.  John  Lewis '  *1883 

1851    *  Benjamin  W.  Raymond l858 

1856      Rev.  Isaac  E.  Carey '  *1863 

1556    *  James  H.  Rogers     ..        .        .        •        •        •        ■        '.".'.'  1865 

1856    *Rev.  Horatio  N.  Bnnsmade,  D.  D 

1856      Anson  P.  Waterman        .        .        •        •        •        ■        ■                        "  1861 

1858    *Rev.  Zephaniah  M.  Humphrey,  D.  U 1863 

1858    *Kev.  Henry  B.  Holmes 

1858      Thomas  D.  Robertson '  *1886 

1858    *Ellis  8.  Chesbrough *  1860 

1858    *Rev.Charles  P.  Bush,  D.  D 1870 

1860    *Rev.  Martin  P.  Kinney 

~^e7secT~Asterisk  before  date  indicates  tenure  of  office  until  decease. 


116 


Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty. 


1861 
1862 
1863 


Joeiah  L.  Pickard,  LL.  D. 

♦Rev.  Charles  D.  Helmer 

Rev.  Isaac  E.  Carey 

Samuel  D.  Hastings 
♦Rev.  Enos  J.  Montague 

Rev.  Samuel  W.  Eaton  D.  D. 

John  B.  Goodrich 
*Roger  H.  Mi]  Is 

Sereno  T.  Merrill 

Rev.  Joseph  Collie,  D.  D. 

Rev.  Lyman  Whiting,  D.  D. 
*Harlan  M.  Page 

Rev.  Henry  P.  Higley,  D.  D. 

Orlando  B.  Bidwell 

Rev.  Henry  A.  Miner    . 

Rev.  Henry  T.  Rose 

Rev.  John  McLean 

Dexter  A.  Knowlton 

Rev.  Dexter  D.  Hill     . 

Rev.  Edward  D.  Eaton.  D.  D 

Elijah  Swift 
♦James  W.  Scoville 
♦James  B.  Peet 

Rev.  Frederick  A.  Noble,  D. 

Rev.  Judson  Titsworth 
♦Samuel  K.  Martin     . 

Edward  H.  Pitkin 

Charles  M.  Blackman    . 

Albert  F.  Story     . 

William  E.  Hale       . 

James  K.  Moore    . 

Robert  E.  Jenkins    . 

Elbridge  G.  Keith 

A.  C.  Bartlett    . 

Rev.  Walter  M.  Barrows,  D. 

William  Spooner 

('harles  A.  Emerson     . 

Rev.  George  H.  Ide,  D.  D. 

Edward  P.  Bacon 

Frank  G.  Logan 

George  H.  Ray 

Henry  S.  Osborne     . 

Jonathan  S.  Peirce 

Rev.  Edward  P.  Salmon 

Rev.  Sedgwick  P.  Wilder    . 

Rev.  Joseph  II.  Selden    . 

Philo  F.  Pettibone 

Fredrick  G.  Ensign 

John  E.  Wilder     . 

Rev.  William  H.  Day      , 
Treasurers— 

1845    ♦Benjamin  Durham 

♦Jackson  J.  Bushnell     . 
♦Leander  D.  Gregory 

Anson  P.  Waterman     . 
Sereno  T.  Merrill 

Rev.  Dexter  D.  Hill,     . 
1882    ♦John  H.  French 
1889      Dexter  A.  Knowlton     . 
Acting  and  Assistant  Treasurers 

1886  ♦Aaron  L.  Chapin.  D.  D. 

1887  ♦Rev.  Lucian  D.  Mears 
1891      Anson  P.  Waterman 

Financial  Agents  and  Secretaries 
1849    ♦Rev.  Stephen  Peet   . 

1853  ♦Rev.  O.  S.  Powell 

1854  Rev.  Huntington  Lyman 


1866 


1866 

1867 


1870 
1870 
1873 
1874 
1874 
1876 
1876 
1878 
1878 
1881 
1881 
1883 
I.vCj 
1886 
1886 
ihm; 
1886 
1887 


1889 
1889 
1891 
1891 
1891 
189  L 
1892 
1892 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1894 
1895 
1897 
1897 
1897 


1849 

1856 


1877 
1881 


I). 


LL 


1878 
1876 
1874 
1891 
♦1881 

1890 

♦1881 


1877 
♦1886 


1892 

1883 
1885 

1886 


1886 
♦1891 


1893 
1897 


1897 


?1846 
1856 


1877 
1881 


1887 
1891 


1852 
1854 
1855 


Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty.  117 

1958      Rev.  S.  Beane 1858 

1863  *Rev.  Philo  C.  Pettibone 1870 

1877  hev.  Henry  H.  Benson 1878 

1878  Rev.  Henry  A.  Miner 1880 

1881  Rev.  Dexter  D.  Hill 1883 

1884  *Kev.  George  W.  Nelson  1886 

1888  A.  T.  Hemingway 1888 

1889  Rev.  Louis  E.  Holden 

PROFESSORS; 

Mathematics  and  Natural,  Philosophy— 

1848    * Jackson  J.  Bushnell,  M.  A 1859 

1860      Rev.  Henry  8.  Kelsey,  M.  A 1863 

1864  *Jackson  J.  Bushnell,  M.  A *1873 

1879  Thomas  A.  Smith,  Ph.  D 

Languages— 

1848  Rev.  Joseph  Emerson,  M.  A 1856 

Chemistry  and  Natural  Science— 

1849  *S.  Pearl  Lathrop,  M.  D 1854 

1858  *  Henry  B.  Nason,  Ph.  I) 1866 

1866      Elijah  P.  Harris,  Ph.  D.  .  1868 

1868    *James  H.  Eaton,  Ph.  D 1873 

Intellectual  and  Moral  Philosophy— 

1850  *Miles  P.  Squier.  D.  D.  (Emeritus,  1864) *1866 

1864    *James  J.  Blaisdell,  D.  D *1896 

History  and  Civil  Polity — 

1853  *AaronL.  Chapin.  D.D.,  LL.D 1886 

Rhetoric  and  English  Literature— 

1854  Franklin  W.  Fisk,  D.  D.,  LL.D 1859 

1859  *James  J.  Blaisdell,  D.  D 1864 

1868      Rev.  Lyman  S.  Rowland,  M.  A 1870 

1871      Rev.  Henry  M.  Whitney,  M.  A 

Greek  Language  and  Literature— 

1856      Joseph  Emerson,  D.  D 

Latin  Language  and  Literature— 

1856      WiUiam  Porter,  D.  D 

Modern  Languages— 

1871      Peter  Hendrickson,  M.  A 1884 

1886      Arthur  C.  Dawson,  B.  L 1887 

1888  Calvin  W.  Pearson.  Ph.  D 

Chemistry  and  Mineralogy — 

1873    *  James  H.  Eaton,  Ph.  D *1877 

1881      Erastus  G.  Smith,  Ph.  D 

Geology.  Zoology  and  Botany — 

1873      Thomas  C.  Chamberlin,  Ph.  D 1880 

1884      Rollin  D.  Salisbury,  M.  A 1889 

Geology— 

1880      Thomas  C.  Chamberlin.  LL.  D.,  Ph.  D.    (Lecturer  1883-1886).     .        1883 

1889  Rollin  D.  Salisbury,  M.  A 1891 

1893      George  L.  Collie,  Ph.  D • 

History— 

1886      Edward  D.  Eaton,  LL.  D.,  D.  D 

Civil  Polity— 

1886    *Aaron  L.  Chapin,  LL.  D.,  D.  D *1892 

Astronomy.    (Also  Director  of  Observatory)— 

1886      Charles  A.  Bacon,  M.  A - 

Botany— 

1890  Hiram  D.  Densmore,  M.  A 


118  Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty. 

Astronomical  Physics— 

1891  George  E.  Hale,  B.  S.     {Lecturer  from,  1893)        ....  1893 
Greek  Literature  and  Art— 

1892  Theodore  L.  Wright,  M.  A 

Oratory— 

1892     Rev.  Louis  E.  Holden.  M.  A 

Political  Economy— 

1892      Robert  C.  Chapin,  M.  A 

Music— 

1896      Benjamin  D.  Allen 

Principals  of  the  Academy  and  Preparatory  Department— 

1854  *Lucius  D.  Chapin,  M.  A 1855 

1855  John  P.  Fisk,  M.  A 1871 

1871  Ira  W.  Pettibone,  M.  A 1881 

1881  William  W.  Rowlands,  M.  A 1881 

L884  Rev.  Almon  W.  Burr,  M.  A.    (Also  Professor  of  Pedagogics  from 

t886) . 

Librarians— 

1849      Joseph  Emerson,  D.  D 1896 

1896  Charles  A.  Bacon,  M.  A.     (Acting  Librarian  from  iwj.    . 

ACTING  AND  ASSISTANT  PROFESSORS: 

Mathematics— 

1852      William  Porter,  A.       - 1856 

Chemistry— 

1880      C.  Gilbert  Wheeler,  Ph.  D 1881 

Geology,  Zoology  and  Botany— 

1880      James  E.  Todd,  M.  A 1883 

1883      Rollin  D.  Solisbury,  M.  A 1884 

Modern  Languages— 

1885      Arthur  C.  Dawson.  B.  L 1886 

1887  Calvin  W.  Pearson,  Ph.  D 1888 

Ancient  Languages— 

1888  Theodore  L.  Wright,  M.  A 1892 

Philosophy— 

1897  Guy  A.  Tawney,  Ph.  D 

INSTRUCTORS: 

Mathematics— 

1855  *Rev.  Mason  P.  Grosvenor 1855 

1856  *Rev.  Melzar  Montague,  M.  A 1856 

Chemistry— 

1856    *  James  Richards,  M.  D 1857 

Rhetoric— 

1865  *Henry  C.  Dickinson,  B.  A 1866 

1866  *Rev.  Edward  G.  Miner,  M.  A 1867 

Modern  Languages— 

1870      Peter  Hendrickson,  M.  A 1871 

1885      Mills  Whittlesey,  M.  A 1885 

Physics— 

1876  Goodwin  D.  Swezey,  M.  A 1877 

Mineralogy  and  Natural  History— 

1877  Goodwin  D.  Swezey,  M.  A.  .  1879 

Mathematics  and  Chemistry— 

1877      Thomas  A.  Smith,  Ph.  D 1879 


Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty.  110 

Elocution    (Oratory)— 

1884      J.  R.  J.  Anthony 1887 

1887  Edward  M.  Booth,  M.  A L891 

1891  Bov.  Louis  E.  Holden,  M.  A 1892 

Mathematics  and  Astronomy.    {Also  Director  of  the  observatory.)— 

1884  JohnTatlock,Jr.,  B.  A 18*5 

1885  Charles  A.  Bacon,  M.  A 1886 

Natural  Sciences— 

1886  David  J.  Lingle,  B.  S 1887 

Biology— 

1888  Hiram  D.  Densmore,  M.  A 1890 

Civil  Polity— 

1888     Robert  C.  Chapin,  M.  A 1889 

History  and  Political  Economy-- 

1890      Dwight  B.  Waldo,  Ph.  M.      .        . 1*92 

Music— 

1892  Bev.  Henry  D.  Sleeper 1894 

1894      Renjamin  D.  Allen 1896 

Geology— 

1892  Carry  E.  Culver 1892 

Art— 

1893  Lawton  S.  C.  Parker 1894 

1894  Charles  F.  Browne 1-95 

1895  Harry  W.  Methven 1^95 

Physical  Culture— 

1804      John  W.  Hollister,  B.  A 1895 

1895      Charles  M.  Hollister,  M.  D 

TUTODS— 

1849  Isaac  E.  Carey,  B.  A 1851 

1850  *Joseph  Hurlbut,  B.  A 1851 

1851  *Thomas  S.  Potwin,  B.  A 1*53 

1853  *Fisk  P.  Brewer,  B.  A 1854 

1854  Lewis  C.  Baker,  B.  A 1855 

1855  William  U.  Alexander,  B.  A 1*56 

185B      Peter  McVicar,  B.  A 1857 

1857      William  H.  Ward,  B.  A 1858 

1857  Franklin  C.  Jones,  B.  A Ia5« 

1858  *Henry  S.  DeForst,  B.  A *  I860 

1864    *Henry  C.  Dickinson.  B.  A 1*65 

1869    *M.  Stuart  Phelps,  B.  A 1869 

Assistant  Principals  of  the  Academy— 

1890      Wayland  S.  Axtell.  M.  A.        , 1*92 

1892      George  P.  Bacon,  M.  A, ,  1897 

Assistants  and  Instructors  in  Preparatory  School  and  Academy— 

1871  Allison  D.  Adams,  B.  A 1872 

1872  Thomas  D.  Christie,  B.  A 1874 

1874  Goodwin  D.  Sweezey,  B.  A 1875 

1875  Samuel  T.  Kidder,  B.  A 1876 

1876  John  F.  Home,  B.  A 1877 

1877  Robert  B.  Riggs,  B.  A •        .        .        .  1879 

1879  John  F.  Home,  M.  A 1880 

1880  Edward  M.  Hill,  B.  A 1881 

1881  Theodore  L.  Wright,  B.  A 1883 

1882  Rollin  D.  Salisbury,  B.  A 1883 

1883  James  Simmons,  Jr.,  B.  Ph 18*4 

1884  Theodore  L.  Wright,  M.  A 1886 

1886  Horace  S.  Fiske.  M.  A 1887 

1887  Theodore  L.  Wright,  M.  A 1888 

1887  Rufus  B.  McClenon,  M.  A.      .        - 1889 

1888  J  Llewellyn  J.  Davies,LB..A 1889 


120  Register  of  Officers  and  Faculty. 

1889      William  A.  Perkins,  M.  A 1892 

1889      Henry  B.  Kummel,  B.  A 1891 

1889      William  K.  Hay 

1891      Harry  A.  Cushing,  B.  A 1893 

1891  Elliot  K.  Downing,  M.  S 1896 

1892  Ernest  L.  Benson,  B.  A I1"?* 

1893  Allan  P.  Ball,  M.  A 1897 

1891      Arthur  E.  Fraser,  B.  A 1895 

1895  Robert  J.  Eddy.  B.  A 

1896  Howard  S.  Brode,  Ph.  D 

This  record  would  be  incomplete  without  the  mention  of  Mr.  John  Pfeffer's 
service  as  janitor  from  1864. 


Cham,  Ingeesoll.  Printer,  Beloit,  Wis 


3  0112  110833180 


